


Ones and Zeroes

by Tytonidae



Category: Red vs. Blue
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-10-22
Updated: 2016-12-13
Packaged: 2018-04-27 15:49:55
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 35
Words: 95,289
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5054662
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tytonidae/pseuds/Tytonidae
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Cancelled.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This fic has been cancelled for the following reasons:  
> 1\. I've lost interest in RvB and tuckington in general and no longer feel compelled to write about the characters.  
> 2\. Inability to write a satisfactory ending.  
> 3\. Personal reasons.
> 
> I'm really sorry to everyone who wanted to see the story finished. I enjoyed writing it back over the course of late 2015/early 2016 but the master document has been collecting dust on my hard drive for nearly a year and I don't want anyone to still be hoping that it will one day update. I don't want to delete just in case anyone is still interested in rereading for some reason, but I have removed all the tags to minimise the chances of new readers coming along and being disappointed. If anyone's really interested, message me on tumblr @oenotherax if you want to know what would have happened. 
> 
> Sorry again.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> \- Autumn, 2033. London, UK. -

           “Aren’t you in the least bit excited?” Tucker asked as he began to cut away at the plastic packaging with a pair of scissors, glancing up at Junior who was perched sitting on the bottom step of the staircase, gnawing on his knuckle and looking apprehensive.

          “Well…. I guess….”

          “Is there something about synths that bother you?”

          “My friend Charlie at school says that they can go crazy and attack you,” Junior admitted.

          To this, Tucker simply chuckled. “Your friend Charlie chats a lot of shit.”

          “So there isn’t any chance it will go crazy?”

          “Little guy, do you really think I would have spent over two grand on one of these things just so it could kill me? If I wanted to die, there are far cheaper ways to do it.”

          Junior considered this before nodding. Just as Tucker was about to take a Stanley knife and open the white cardboard box itself that contained the synth, a loud knock on the front door a metre away interrupted him. Junior hopped over some discarded packaging to open it, revealing on the threshold Kaikaina dressed in running bottoms and a t-shirt despite the cold weather. She stared down uncomprehendingly at the scene before her for a moment before shock registered on her face. 

          “Holy shit Tucker.”

          “Good to see you too!”

          “Hello?” Junior said, annoyed at being ignored.

          “Oh, hey there Junior. What the fuck is this?” the woman said, coming into the hallway and kicking the door shut behind her with her foot.

          “I decided to purchase an lifetime supply of paperclips. Oh, come on Kai, what do you think it is?” Tucker said, gesturing at the human-sized dimensions of the object.

          “But  _you_? Mr ‘I-hate-all-robots’? The guy who has been preaching to me for years about how wholesome it is to do housework yourself? What the hell has made you change your mind?”

          “What can I say? I got bored of housework.”

          “Come on, there’s got to be more to it than that!”

          Tucker paused for a moment, but he had no reason not to tell her. He had already discussed the issue with Junior over the past few weeks to see if he would be okay with it, so it was not like his son’s presence was a reason to stall.

          “Well, I was actually thinking about getting back onto the dating scene – you know, proper dating – and thought it might be nice to-“

          He was cut off by a squeal of delight from Kai, who practically launched herself at him where he was kneeled on the floor. Tucker just managed to avoid toppling over as she embraced him. She put her hands on his shoulders and inspected him from arm’s length.

          “Oh Tucker, that’s fantastic! I’m so pleased for you!”

          “Well, thank you-“

          “I understand how hard it’s been…. Since…. Well….” The woman exchanged an emphatic glance between Tucker and Junior, who immediately looked at the floor. “Seriously, it’s great that you’re moving on. Not – not of course that you would be  _forgetting_ about her…. Not replacing her of course-“

          “Kai, we know, its fine. There isn’t going to be any replacements. We’ll always have your Mum won’t we Junior?”

          Junior gave a small nod.

          “So it all starts with a synth, does it?” Kai said, clapping her hands together, although it was plainly obvious to Tucker how keen she was to move away from the topic of his deceased wife. “What’s the make and model and such?”

          “Yep!” Tucker said, beginning to slice through the cardboard. “I ordered one of those maid ones.”

          “Oh no, you didn’t!” Kaikaina cried, horrified.

          “No!” Tucker said quickly, “Not a  _sexy_ maid, an ordinary one! You know, the old, Grandma-type maid. I thought the sexy maids might give off the wrong vibe to any women I bring home…”

          “Jesus, yes, I was about to say," Kai said, pretending to wipe sweat from her brow. "They're so tacky."

          Tucker paused for a moment whilst he grabbed the user manual that had come with the synth and read some of the purple-prose PR nonsense within it. “Here we go: ‘ _Can cook thousands of different wholesome, healthy meals for you and your family_ …’ blah blah blah ‘ _anything from the finest tofu stir-fries to the tastiest tiramisu…_ ’ blah blah…. ‘ _Will automatically clean and do laundry without asking. Never worry about having to wash-up or iron again!_ ’”

          “I love it how it has taken you literally years to realise how freaking useful these things are,” Kaikiana teased, before smacking the box with her palm. “Now open it, open it! I want to see what your new helper looks like!”

          Tucker slid the knife down to the base of the box and opened up both the resulting flaps. Inside, there was the rather unsettling outline of a humanoid body, wrapped in yet another layer of opaque plastic.

          “For god’s sake,” Tucker cursed softly as he began to pull this layer away, “the environmental impact of all this shit they wrap it in must be-“

          There was a silence after he pulled this sheet away to reveal the synth’s face.

          “Oh,” Kai said after a moment. “Damn, it’s hot.”

          Junior was peering over Tucker’s shoulder. “Dad, I thought you said it was going to be a lady,” he said, puzzled.

          After another half moment, Tucker dropped the Stanley knife to the floor in frustration and rocked back to squat on his haunches. “God dammit. They’ve mixed up my order!”

          The synth inside the box was not a homely old female housekeeper, but instead one in the image of a man about the same age Tucker was, in his thirties or so, with rugged features and dirty-blonde hair that had been bleached toward the top a peroxide shade that reminded Tucker of characters out of bad 80s and 90s punk/disco music videos. Kai wasn’t wrong; the synth was attractive. 

          Kai started giggling, and Tucker shot her a dirty look. She tried at first to suppress her laughter with a wave of her hand before completely dissolving into a heap of mirth on the floor. “Oh my  _god_.”

          “Stop it,” Tucker grumbled.

          “This must be some sort of cosmic retribution for not having embraced the technology earlier or something. You rejected a human being’s fate to own a synth and now you are being punished by getting a wrong model.”

          “Well, we aren’t keeping it,” Tucker shot back. It was hard to keep a straight face despite the enormous inconvenience he would now have to address in wrapping the machine back up and arranging with the delivery company to return it to the shop. Kaikaina had an infectious laugh. “It looks completely unlike what I requested.”

          “I like it,” Junior said abruptly.

          Tucker raised an eyebrow at his son. “I thought earlier you didn’t like synths and now you want to keep the first one we open?”

          “He looks cool,” Junior said, shrugging a little. “I’d rather he dropped me off at school than some boring old lady.”

          “You might as well try it out,” Kai said, recovering somewhat and reaching down to run a finger along the synth’s polymer ‘skin’.

          “No, we aren’t keeping it,” Tucker reaffirmed. “It isn’t what I ordered. It could be defective, or have completely the wrong programming….” Even as the words left him out, he could feel his willpower draining away under the expectant gazes of his son and his friend. He shifted on the wooden floor of the hallway before eventually sighing. “Fine!”

          “Yay!” Kia squeaked, and reached out to touch the underside of the synth’s chin before Tucker hurriedly batted her hand away.

          “Hey, I’m supposed to do that!”

          “Alright, Mr Control Freak,” she groused.

          A little awkwardly, Tucker touched the underside of the synth’s chin, and the immediacy with which the thing opened his eyes made him jump slightly and pull his hand away. Vivid blue eyes, the pupil ringed with soft grey light, stared up at him.

          Kai handed him from the pile of documentation a small scratch card that held the synth’s vocal activation sequence. “Ghost,” Tucker read, “Warthog. Hornet. Pelican.”

          A soft start-up tone was heard as the synth booted up.

          “Hello,” it said in a liquid-smooth voice.

           Its accent was completely neutral – if Tucker had heard another person talking with it he wouldn’t have been able to place whereabouts in the country it was from.

          “My name is Lavernius Tucker,” Tucker said, having seen this process enough on television shows and streaming services’ advertisements to know how the process worked. “I will be your primary user.”

          He allowed the synth a moment to reply, “Hello, Lavernius Tucker. I will need biometric information from you for identification and security purposes. This data will not be shared with any third-parties, although AnthroCyber may collect some minor statistics for user-feedback purposes to help-“

          “God, he’s chatty, ain’t he?” Kai commented dryly as the robot rambled on before eventually Tucker just grabbed his hand to allow the robot’s sensors to gather some of his biological information.

          “I would like to register Lavernius Tucker II, otherwise known as ‘Junior,’ as a secondary user. Please note that Junior is a minor and appropriate protocols apply.”

          “Noted,” the synth replied. It eyes flickered to his son. “Hello, Junior.”

          At this point, Tucker had to flicker through the manual, a little unnerved by the synth’s dead-eyed stare from where it lay in the box. Were it not for the shallow movement of the thing’s chest, it would have seemed a lot like a corpse. Synth manufacturers were obsessed with avoiding the so-called ‘Uncanny Valley’ of humanoid robotics, but they still hadn’t quite risen out of it yet. Eventually, he found what he was looking for.

          “State core functions.”

          “My core functions are to cook meals for my primary and secondary users; to clean and maintain their living space or spaces; to wash and iron, if appropriate, their items of clothing; to aid my users in a wide variety of day-to-day tasks; to-“      

          “Huh,” Tucker said, placated somewhat.

          “See? It works fine,” Kai said, rolling her eyes as if Tucker was just being frivolous by daring to be annoyed at the company for giving him the wrong model.

          “It’s  _still_ not what I asked for.”

          Kai shrugged. “Sometimes accidents happen for a reason. Maybe you’ll be happier with this fella than with some old lady, who knows?”

          Tucker glanced back at Junior, who was too busy inspecting the synth to pay much attention to the adults. The synth was looking at the boy with an absent smile on his face. Tucker was reminded of why he didn’t like the things in the first place.

          “A homely old lady robot might make me seem more mature and sensible in the eyes of my dates, don’t you think? What sort of synths do other eligible single dads have? I don’t know what this thing would say about me….”

          “Tucker, if they are serious about you, you happening to have a synth that's young and male isn’t going to make a difference.”

          Tucker chewed on his lower lip for a moment.

          “Do you really want to go through the hassle of returning this thing?”

          “Why are you so keen on me to keep it?” Tucker asked the woman suddenly, narrowing his eyes at her.

          Kai smiled deviously. “I just think if you return this thing, you aren’t going to get another…”

          “That’s fairly astute,” Tucker admitted. “I think this thing’s already put me off and it’s only been in the house for fifteen minutes.”

          “So keep it! Go on, it’ll be great to have help around the house, won’t it? And plus, that thing is hot. It’ll be something nice to look at after seeing your ugly mug.”

          Tucker playfully poked her in the ribs for that comment.

          “Alright,  _fine._ I’ll keep it for a few days, see how it does. If it’s in any way defective or damaged than I’m getting rid of it immediately, understood?”

          Kai gave him a shit-eating grin. “A nice choice, good sir.”

          “It’s called Wash,” Junior called over, interrupting them. “Dad? Are you listening?”

          “It’s called Wash?” Tucker said in amusement

          “They are meant to come up with randomly-generated names,” Kai explained, looking a little surprised, “but usually that means they have names like ‘Tom’ and ‘Anna’. Is Wash even a name?”

,,,,,,,,,,“I guess that’s a good a name as any champ. It’s appropriate, considering what he’s going to be spending his time doing. Wash, please could you go and makes us me and Kai a cup of tea each?”

          The synth nodded and levered itself out of the box and onto its feet in one fluid motion that had been too smooth and elegant for any human to have made.

          “Oh, lame. It’s taller than I am.”

          “A  _lot_ of things are taller than you are dude.” Kai smirked.


	2. Chapter 2

          Walking into work the next morning was unpleasant.

         The moment Tucker stepped through the glass doors of the main office, he was met by a wave of noise as Grif, Simmons and Donut immediately started interrogating him about the new addition to his household, having predictably been tipped-off by Kai.

          “So you got a  _male_ synth?” Grif said, clearing very amused by this. “There isn’t something you want to tell us, is there Tucker?”

          “Dude, if you think all men with a male synth are gay or bi, I’ve got news for you.”

           “But I mean, if you picked a male synth over a female one…”

          “Didn’t Kai tell you? It wasn’t intentional.” Tucker grumbled as he hung up his coat and walked over to his desk with his cup of coffee. “The shipping company or manufacturer must have had a computer error.”

          “So are you keeping him?” Donut pressed. “I hear he’s one fine piece of polymer.”

          “Don’t get any ideas Donut!” Tucker warned.

          The man’s hand flew to his throat. “Me! Never!” he replied, the picture of innocence.

          “Do you know the make and model?” said Simmons. “Apple? Anthrocyber? Samsung? HuBot? I’m thinking about upgrading. Abbey’s getting sort of glitchy.“

          Tucker shook his head. “Considering the make and model still insist I’ve bought something completely different, I’m not going to be much help recommending you a new model, sorry man.”

          Sitting down, Tucker pulled out his phone and sent a brief text to Junior to check if he had gotten to school okay.

_trusting the synth didn’t get lost?_

_yeh dad synth didn’t get lost. he’s cool. charlie is impressed_

          Tucker smiled wryly.

          The rest of the day passed uneventfully. Even the others eventually stopped squabbling over whether or not Tucker’s synth was more likely to be a sex synth or simply a companion synth for old people (what with that terribly outdated hairstyle), and by the time four o’clock rolled around, the matter had largely been forgotten. Tucker signed out and hailed on of the cities’ autos, and while the car drove him home texted Junior again.

           _hey little guy, you home safe?_

_yeh wash was there at the school gates it was fine. I really like him can we keep him. He knows jui-jitsu_

Tucker had to re-read the message several times to make sure he had comprehended it correctly.

           _what?_

_like kung-fu_

_??? how did you find this out?_

Tucker added an appropriately unimpressed emoji to emphasis this point. Outside, the world blurred past as the car accelerated onto the A-Road that led out of the city-centre and into the surrounding suburbs. Tucker looked at the bare trees and steely grey sky before his phone bleeped at him that Junior had replied.

           _no he didn’t dad he just said he knew how to do jui-jitsu when we asked him._

Tucker relaxed. The synth in all likelihood did not know martial arts, it was just eight-year-olds trying to impress each other. Tucker remembered when he was a child (before the days of synths) trying to claim his dad was a black-belt in Karate.

          For fifteen minutes he idly flicked through what there was on Netflix, iPlayer and 4OD tonight before the car pulled up outside his house on the tree-lined avenue that was his street. Shouldering his work-satchel, he approached the front door which opened as the house detected his arrival, revealing the synth on the other side.

          “Good afternoon Lavernius,” it said, “May I take your bag for you?”

          Tucker, who found the thought of it just waiting on the other side of the door for him to come home a little unsettling, looked around the hall. To be fair, the place was looking absolutely spotless; the synth had not been slacking.

          “Sure,” he said, handing the synth the item. It took a moment for him to realise the robot had also changed clothes out of the generic medical scrubs-like garment that the things usually wore. He was wearing some of Tucker’s clothes: a pale grey shirt, some of his nice slim-fitting red chinos and some faux-leather walking shoes.

          “Would you like something to drink Lavernius?” the thing was asking.

          “No, what the hell are you doing wearing my stuff?” Tucker asked. Something about this irrationally incensed him. “You aren’t meant to be stealing from me. Take those off immediately!”

          The synth looked at him with a blank half-smile, as it always did. “Of course, Lavernius.”

          At once, its hands started to rapidly unbutton the shirt.

          “No, no! Don’t just strip off here!” Tucker said, flailing slightly, stepping closer to physically restrain it from getting undressed. For some reason, he could feel his cheeks burning. “Go and take them off and put them back where you found them, okay? You wear the clothes you came with, understood?”

          The synth nodded. “Understood.”

          “Why did you put them on in the first place?” Tucker demanded.

          The synth was silent for a moment, its blue-silver eyes fixed on his. “I’m sorry Lavernius, I do not understand the question.”

          “Why did you put my clothes on?”

          “I’m sorry Lavernius, I do not understand the question.”

          Tucker huffed in annoyance. “Fine, act all shady. This isn’t doing you any favours you know. Pull stunts like this again and you’re going straight to the shop. Or the recycling centre.”

          The synth’s emotion-recognising algorithms finally kicked in, and the synth’s expression became serious. “Of course Lavernius.”

          “And just call me ‘Tucker’ please!” Tucker snapped. “I’m only ‘Lavernius’ to my own mother and father.”

          With that, he allowed the robot to make its way back upstairs. Junior padded through around the same moment, clutching a VR-headset under one arm. “What were you talking to Wash about Dad?” he said, looking around for the machine.         

          “Did you tell it to wear my clothes?” Tucker asked his son, who shook his head.

          “No. He was already dressed like that when I met him at the school gates. We’re not getting rid of him are we?”

          Junior looked so pained by the idea of getting rid of the synth that Tucker simply shrugged. “I suppose not. It must be some new ‘feature’ the manufacturers have added to make people feel better about owning the things. ‘It now dresses like an ordinary person!’ or something. Have you thought about what you want for dinner? I’m just going to walk down to the supermarket in about twenty minutes.”

          “Dad, Wash has already prepared dinner. Like he did yesterday.”

          Tucker blinked. “Oh…. Of course. That’s his job…”

          Junior gave his father a quizzical look before heading back into the living room.

          “Have you done all your homework?” Tucker called after him, to which there was a notable lack of reply.

           _I’ll chase him up later about it_ , he thought.

 

          A little while later, after having eaten a very nice bean casserole Wash had made, Tucker was lounging on the sofa with a beer, watching the evening’s news on the section of wall that doubled as a television thanks to the OLED wallpaper he’d had installed the year previously. Junior was (hopefully asleep) in bed, having eventually been forced to do his homework by Tucker, and Tucker himself, with no outstanding projects to be doing, had allowed himself some time to put up his feet.

          Really, he figured, he had no excuse to not to go onto one of the numerous dating websites he was signed up with and start to arrange dates with potential matches, but that required  _effort_. Tucker had no reason to worry about money, but restaurants were expensive and arranging dates meant budgeting and making sure he wasn’t busy that day and ensuring that Junior knew what was happening and…. Well…. It was just a bother.

          He was meant to be watching clips of the new ESA mission to the moon that was underway, but his attention kept wandering to the synth, sitting on a chair near the tall bay windows that led out into the garden, charging from a wall socket. It was so completely motionless that it could have been a statue.

          Tucker took a sip of his beer.

          “Wash?”

          The robot’s eyes opened at once, the twin rings of light illuminating to full brightness. “Can I help you Tucker?”

          “Do you dream?”

          The answer took Tucker a little aback with its abruptness. “No.”

          “Huh.” Tucker said, sitting up a little straighter on the sofa’s cushions to look at the thing. “Well…. Uh… what are you thinking right now?”

          “I’m sorry Tucker, I do not understand the question.”

          “What’s your current… I don’t know… thought process? What algorithms are you running? What are going through those CPU cores of yours?” Tucker said, gesturing vaguely, an action that very nearly spilt his drink onto the carpet.

          “I am currently monitoring the temperature, humidity, and various gas concentrations within this room, to ensure they do not stray from safe parameters. Auditory sensors are attuned to listen to noise that may suggest my secondary user upstairs is not in distress, as well as respond to any queries or orders you, as my primary user, might have for me.”

          Tucker interrupted before the synth could continue. “So you’re not  _thinking_.”

          “I’m sorry Tucker, I do not understand the question.”

          For some reason, Tucker felt inclined to continue with such questions despite all evidence pointing to the fact that this was a futile exercise.

          “Do you have a favourite colour?”

          “No.”

          “Do you have a favourite song?”

          “No.”

          “A favourite place? A favourite person?” Tucker said, taking another glug of his beer.

          “No and no,” the machine replied.

          “Do you have any desires? Wants?”

          “I am not programmed to feel emotion or have any degree of personal goals beyond serving my registered users, although I may express simulations of emotions such as happiness and sadness during interactions with individuals such as yourself in order to show appropriate levels of understanding-“

          “You’re just a stupid machine than,” Tucker concluded.

          “Of course,” the thing replied in its smooth, deep voice.


	3. Chapter 3

          “I’m going to get you!” Tucker growled, much to Junior’s delight and terror. The eight-year-old doggy paddled away as fast as possible while Tucker ducked beneath the surface of the water and glided along the pool’s bottom like a sting-ray. He circled a little, knowing the effect this had on Junior, before grabbing one of his feet and giving it a tug – not enough to pull him under but enough to make him thrash about. When he surfaced, pulling him into a bear-hug in the process, Junior was unable to speak between laughing and yelling.

          The noise he was making wasn’t drawing attention: pool was already busy with plenty of noisy children and their parents enjoying their Saturday mornings.

          “Again, again!” Junior pleaded, but just as about Tucker was about to duck back beneath the surface, he felt a hand on his shoulder.

          He turned around to find a woman he knew from his son’s school, her own daughter in tow.

          “Oh! Hello Emily!” Tucker said warmly. “And is that Elouise I see?”

          “I thought I recognised you,” Emily replied. “Hi Junior, how are you?”

          Junior had suddenly gone all shy in the presence of his classmate and her mother, and so needed a bit of prodding from Tucker to mumble a “Hi Dr Grey.”

          “They always seem to do that,” Tucker said when the parents had managed to get their children to swim off and allow their parents a moment to catch up. “Seem to like each other fine at school and then the moment they see them having fun with their parents…”

          “Bam, they go all shy!” Emily finished, laughing fondly. “My girl is exactly the same.”

          Tucker didn’t want to mention that Junior didn’t like Elouise very much anyway, so moved on hurriedly. “You work on synth programming, if I recall correctly? How is your research coming along?”

          The woman made a dismissive motion with her hand. “So-and-so. We’ve made no big breakthroughs since we met…. Was it at that parent-teacher coffee morning we last spoke?”

          “I believe so,” Tucker said.

          “How time flies! That was weeks ago…”

_Well, if I’m looking for a date…._

          “We should catch up, so how about you come around for a drink this evening?” Tucker said a little boldly. He knew Grey was a divorcee and he liked her: she was friendly if a little eccentric, certainly very interesting, and quite attractive with her long dark hair (currently wrapped up in a swim cap) and slim frame (currently wrapped up in a fetching swimming costume). “I’ve finally cracked to societal pressure and bought a synth, so you aren’t going to have to endure any of my cooking.”

         “Heavens, what a great leap forward you have made,” she replied laconically, to which Tucker grinned, encouraged by her response.

         “Plus, I have a bottle of New Zealand pinot noir that needs drinking up…”

         “You had me at ‘bottle of…’” Emily replied, “What time do you want me?”

 

         Aside from the fact that Wash had once again cooked a bean casserole for the fourth day in a row, the dinner with Dr Grey was going very well. With Junior upstairs in his room, being regularly checked on by the synth, and with Elouise apparently staying at her grandmother’s house, the children were out of their hair and they were free to drink and be merry in peace. It really  _was_  exceptional wine.  

         “So…. Oh my god,” Emily giggled, “So it turned out I’d been sitting in this seminar chatting a load of dog’s bollocks…. Christ, for what, forty-five minutes? And fucking fifteen other people didn’t think to tell me.” She giggled some more, swaying drunkenly from side to side as she laughed.

          Tucker was laughing almost hard to breathe too, drunk enough by this stage to find the story hilarious despite having forgotten why Emily was telling it or why exactly it was funny.

          “Jesus,” he said, wiping tears from his eyes. “And this was at a university. God, there are some idiots in this world.”

         “Was that remark that aimed at me?” Emily giggled, taking another swig from her glass.

          “Of course not! I’m would never be so discourteous a host.” Tucker replied smoothly, before burping. “Excuse me.”

          “Charming!”

          “Oh, Wash!” Tucker exclaimed as the synth put down two dessert plates of lime cheesecake in front of each of them. “Thank you, thank you.”

          “That is no problem,” the synth replied, turning back to leave.

          “And check on Junior will you?” Tucker called after him.

          “Yes Tucker.”

          Emily gestured at the retreating figure. “See! I can’t believe you didn’t like those things. It allows parents to be get plastered at dinner parties, safe in the knowledge the kids aren’t…. I don’t know, sticking their fingers into electrical sockets or drinking from the hot water tap.”

          “I thought it was the cold water tap you weren’t meant to drink from?” Tucker said, a little horrified. “Oh god, all these years.”

          “Oh, whatever. I’ll write it down so I can Wikipedia it when I’m sober,” Emily said. “I think I’m going to have to take a break before I eat this cheesecake….”   

          “I think that feeling is mutual,” Tucker agreed. “Want to join me in the living room?”

          “My Tucker, so forward!” Emily laughed, batting her eyelashes a little. 

          “My dear lady, if I wanted to bed you I’d at least invite you to the boudoir first. I’m not that much of a sleaze not to,” Tucker said in faux-offence.

          “I wouldn’t put it past you. Also, isn’t a boudoir a  _woman’s_ dressing room?”

          “Babe, I don’t discriminate.”

          They half-walked, half-stumbled into the living room and both fell heavily into the two sofas that faced the interactive wall. Tucker wondered if he should try and make a move now – thus far the two of them hadn’t so much as even kissed – but upon reflection he didn’t feel very amorous. Right now he felt more…. well… fond of the woman, similar to how he felt with Kai. Maybe it was just one of those relationships.

         

         

          A noise woke Tucker.

          He jolted gently awake, as you do when you have realised that you have fallen asleep without intending to, and for a horrible ice-cold moment thought that Grey must have left in anger, but then he heard soft snoring from the other sofa in the room and realised that, much as he had done, she had drifted off.

          Tucker couldn’t help but smile slightly at this. _God, we’re so middle-aged already._ He didn’t know many other thirty-somethings who drifted off after…. _What? Half a bottle of wine?_ This in Tucker’s mind was the behaviour of people in their sixties and seventies.

          Then he heard the noise again.

           _Junior?_  Tucker thought at once. If his son got up in the night to find Tucker, he wouldn’t be in his bed. He could have come downstairs to search for him. He got up, stretching the kinks from his back and rubbing the worst of the grogginess from his eyes with the palms of his hands, making his way back towards the dining room and kitchen. The house, detecting from his quickened heartbeat and movement that he was awake, brightened the lights as he came in. Dinner had been cleared away except for their untouched pudding, the bottles of wine and their glasses, Tucker acknowledged gratefully, although he winced slightly upon noticing they had drunk not one but two bottles. He must have opened a second and forgotten about it.

          The sound was clearer now. It sounded musical, as if someone had left the radio on, but…. it was just the voice. There was no backing track, no other vocalists except that lone male voice.

          “ _May god’s love be with you…._ ”

 _The synth is singing to itself_.

          Tucker felt the hairs rising on the back of his neck.

          Synths did not sing to themselves. They were silent unless in the presence of humans. They barely communicated verbally to each other. They did not get bored or feel creative or…. feel anything at all. Tucker had discovered that for himself two nights ago when speaking to Wash directly.

          Nothing good could come of this. This was wrong.

          He edged to peer into the softly-lit kitchen. There was the robot, back turned to Tucker, washing up a large cast-iron pot he had used to cook the casserole in at the sink.

          “ _This is ground control to Major Tom…._ ”

          Tucker could recognise the tune and the words now. And old pop-song from decades ago that topical comedy shows frequently liked to play over footage of Europe’s ongoing, haphazard space programme.

          “ _You’ve really made the grade…_ ”

          “Wash?” Tucker said, interrupting the thing. Almost unconsciously, he put the island counter between him and the robot.

          The singing stopped, and for a moment the synth was absolutely motionless, still holding the dripping saucepan and sponge in his hands.

          Tucker tensed.

         The robot then straightened, and spoke. “Tucker. How may I help you?” It set down the saucepan and sponge on the granite worktop and turned to face him. “Would you like something to eat or drink?” The robot’s expression was its usual dead-eyed half-smile which in this particular situation made Tucker’s skin crawl.

          “What the fuck was that?”

          “I’m sorry Tucker-“ it began, but Tucker cut him off.

          “No, don’t give me that ‘I don’t understand’ bullshit. What were you just doing? I demand that you tell me.”

          “I was washing up the dishes from dinner Tucker,” the synth replied without inflection.

          “You should have finished that-“ Tucker started, but then saw something else: all of the rest of the cooking equipment on the drying rack was completely dry. “How long have you spent cleaning that single pot?”

          The synth was silent.

          “Reply!” Tucker said, his voice growing hot.

          “Tucker?” came a voice.

          Tucker whirled around to find Emily in the doorway to the hallway, blinking in the light and looking concerned. Tucker at once cleared his throat and ran his hand across his short dark hair in startled embarrassment.

          “Oh, Emily, god, I’m sorry you had to hear that-“

          “Is everything all right?”

          “Wash is acting really strangely actually,” Tucker explained quickly, “I just caught him singing and I think he’s been cleaning the same pot for over an hour. He isn’t telling me what is going on.”

          Emily’s eyes flew upwards, and at once Tucker knew that she was the right person to have around right now.

          “ _Really_ now,” she said, immediately beginning to approach the synth. “Tucker, could I get administration rights real quick?”

          “Sure. Wash, consider Dr Grey a primary user for the next fifteen minutes or so,” Tucker said.

          “Of course.”

          “Wash, recall your latest ‘.gms’ files please,” Emily said to the synth. After a length of time in which the synth didn’t react, the ring of light around its eyes flashed brighter for half a second.

          “What’s happening?” asked Tucker in an undertone. “What’s a ‘gms’ file?”

          “A ‘general memory storage’ file. It’s where synths store their-“

          “Error!” the synth suddenly blurted. “File  _26.11.2033_23.00-23.00.gms_  is corrupted or could not be found. Memory log unavailable.”

          Tucker and Emily shot each other significant looks.

          “Error!” Wash said again. “File  _26.11.2033_22.30-23.00.gms_  is corrupted or could not be found. Memory log unavailable.”     

          “Interesting,” said Emily, and pulled out her phone. “Can I access his root code Tucker?”

          To his surprise, the synth spoke before Tucker could open his mouth.

          “AnthroCyber strongly recommends against tampering with synth operating systems of any kind. Removal, modification or addition of code can lead to unexpected behaviours-“

          “Oh calm! I’m a synth engineer,” Emily scolded lightly.

          “Go ahead Emily,” Tucker granted.

          A minute or so later, she seemed to already have made the connection with the robot remotely and was navigating blazingly quickly through a black screen with lots of white text. “Ah, here we go!”

          “That was fast,” Tucker said, with genuine admiration in his tone.

          “Well, I did just say I do this for a living,” Emily replied, giving him a smirk before turning back to her phone. “The cause of the corrupted memory logs was just a few files that didn’t update properly – nothing to lose sleep over. I’m not sure quite why Wash here was  _singing_ , but then synths are complex and when they break, they break spectacularly.” She typed in something into phone before severing the connection and putting it back in her pocket. “What  _was_ he singing by the way?”

          “David Bowie,” Tucker said, which made Emily chuckle.

          “Impressive. He must have overheard it being played when he was going through quality control, and somehow the memory error triggered him to mimic it.”

          “That’s it?”

          “Hmmm?” Emily said, a little perplexed.

          “I’m…. I can’t say I’m at ease around this thing but surely the fact it was singing indicates there’s something wrong with it. Majorly wrong with it. I told you over dinner those incidents where I thought it was acting oddly. I don’t want this thing around Junior unless it’s acting completely as expected.”

          Emily smiled. “You’re a cute Dad Tucker,” she remarked, which made Tucker immediately blush, “but as I said, I don’t see any problems from a glance at his code. His Asimov Protocols are completely intact and functional. There’s no sign of any mods or prior tampering. You do get quirky synths like Wash here every now and again, it’s nothing to worry about.”

          The synth spoke up again, making the two humans glance back at the machine. “I have just completed a system scan following the discovery of corrupted files. Nine issues have been identified and are currently being addressed, all minor.”

          “See?” Emily said, turning back to Tucker.

          “I guess.”

          “If you really are worried though, call me. I’ll come over to see what’s the matter with the poor lamb.”

          “It was a good thing you were here Emily or I would have probably taken an axe to that thing here and now,” Tucker said, straightening his bedraggled shirt.

          “It’s no problem at all! But if you don’t mind Tucker, I think I’m going to make tracks,” Emily admitted.

          “Ah, of course! It is getting late. Would you like me to call an auto?”

          “Already have,” she grinned, reaching into her pocket and wiggling her phone when she pulled it out again.

          “You just can’t wait to leave.”

          “I’m praying that I get out of here as fast as possible,” Emily teased as they made their way into the hallway and Tucker unlocked the front door. “In seriousness, it was a lovely dinner Tucker, thank you. I really enjoyed myself.”

          It was drizzling slightly outside, but a silver Mercedes was already expectantly waiting on the road.

          “Please to have you. And I certainly will tell you if the synth starts acting up again.”

          “A word of advice Tucker?” Emily said, just as she turned to go.

          “Uh-huh?”

          “It’s easier to let them into your life if you think of them more as people. It makes it less weird. Call it ‘Wash.’”

          Tucker thought about this for a moment before shrugging amiably. “We’ll see!”

          Dr Grey kissed him on the cheek.

           _Yes, this is definitely not going to be a romantic relationship. Eh, I’m fine with that_ , Tucker thought.

          “See you again soon?”

          “Certainly!”

          She ran off into the rain towards the Merc, leaving Tucker with only his sleeping son and the glitchy synth as the only other individuals in the quiet house.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi everyone! Thank you so much to everyone who has been leaving kudos & comments, the positive feedback has been so uplifting to see! 
> 
> I just wanted to apologise for any formatting errors that sneak into this fic. Irritatingly some of the indents aren't being transcribed properly from Word to AO3's text editor and I'm having to manually add them back in. OpenOffice didn't have this problem so I might have to switch back to that instead...


	4. Chapter 4

          “God damn piece of silicon and brimstone!” Sarge barked in frustration, bringing his hand down on the dashboard. “What auto in seven hells gets lost nowadays! They’re connected to satellites! We never had to suffer through this nonsense in my day, back when you actually had to put in some blood, sweat and tears and drive vehicles yourself if you wanted to get somewhere!”

          “Well, this farm is quite out of the way,” Donut said diplomatically, “and they don’t get lost very often.”

          “Stop sympathising with the enemy!” Sarge ordered, which made Donut frown and begin,

          “But it’s an inanimate-“

          “I said stop!”

          Sarge seemed to have given up with the main console, so Tucker leaned over from his seat and tried to input the address himself. The auto was currently idling on the side of the road in some god-forsaken part of the Surrey Hills, and was having trouble routing to a wind farm that the engineering company managed. Most hair-tearingly aggravating of all, the three of them (plus Wash and Sarge’s synth Lopez) could _see_ the farm’s turbines spinning a few hundred metres away, but the impracticality of lugging repair equipment over that distance meant they more or less had to find the access road.

          “ _Error. No route found_ ,” the car intoned.

          He tried several times more, changing the last letter of the post code at random to see if the wind farm operator had given them the wrong post code.

          “ _Error_. _No route found_.”

          He sat heavily back in his seat. Sarge was moodily tapping something into his phone and Donut appeared to be having a lengthy verbal battle with an artificial secretary, so that left Wash to talk to, who was sitting in the rear seats smiling vaguely at something outside.

          “Any bright ideas?” Tucker said blithely.

          “I recommend you continue on for 400 metres, and then take the first left. Continue down that road for 2.8 kilometres and, at the roundabout, take the first exit. Continue-“

          “Bloody hell,” Tucker exclaimed, “how the fuck do you know the directions to this place?”

          The other two had paused to listen in on what Tucker’s synth had to say now.

          “I made a visual estimate of the wind farm’s distance compared to my current location, which I know due to my connection with the _Galileo_ satellite network,” Wash explained, “Cross-referencing this data and the name of the wind farm with publically-available databases from the Department of Energy  & Climate Change, I pinned down where the service road to the wind farm should be. Due to a recent re-wilding and road removal scheme by Surrey County Council, mapping software this vehicle uses it is six months out of date and consequently unable to navigate to the road.”

          Tucker blinked. “Blimey.”

          Donut was looking just as astonished as the rest of them. “I’m not sure my synth Gary could do that…!”

          Sarge was glaring with outright suspicion at the machine. “No synth in sam-hell that I’ve encountered has that level of reasoning and problem-solving!”

          “Well, we might as well follow his instructions. They’re better than what the car is providing in any case,” Donut said pragmatically.

          “Wash is a bit of a…. special snowflake,” Tucker said, trying to diffuse some of the tension in the car, mostly emanating from Sarge.

          “You don’t say, son,” Sarge said.

 

 

          It was as Tucker was climbing up the nearly one hundred metre tall ladder inside the main shaft of the faulty turbine did he finally place why exactly Wash’s earlier directional skills had bothered him so much.

          The obvious reason was that it was just another unsettling quirk in a growing list of them: the fact Junior had insisted that Wash had already come with the name Wash; the inability to cook anything other than bean casseroles; the Bowie rendition; the fact he had come home to find Wash wearing his clothes.

          But it was more than that.

          Tucker eventually realised that Wash had just exhibited a level of problem solving equivalent to that in an ordinary human being – equivalent to that in Tucker himself. The advent of driverless cars had already forced the government to start providing the populace a universal basic income, and even now in the news there was talk of replacing tens of thousands of non-specialised doctors with medical AI. Tucker was one of those lucky enough to still find work, and had benefitted greatly from it, but if synths were capable of outperforming humans in almost _every_ area….

          He glanced down at Wash, following him up the ladder a few metres below.

          _I think I could definitely keep the house, but I certainly couldn’t send Junior to private school like we wanted him…. And god knows how I’m going to support him if he chooses to go on to university._

It was too anxiety-inducing an area to consider when there were more immediate issues, such as doing his job and fixing the turbine. He focussed on climbing. It was a long way up, certainly, but regular visits to the gym and biweekly ten kilometre runs meant Tucker was trim and healthy despite most of the time having a desk job. By the time they reached the nacelle – the metallic housing containing the gearbox, generator and energy cells of the turbine – he was only sweating lightly.

          The components he was meant to be looking at were housed on the other side of the generator, meaning Tucker would have to make an excursion on the exterior of the nacelle to reach the access port it was accessible behind.

          “Strap up Wash. I hope you are not afraid of heights,” Tucker called as he buckled himself into the safety harness and pushed open the hatch.

          They were immediately buffeted with wind and noise. Although the turbine they were in had its brakes applied and was not currently spinning, all around them the rest of the farm’s array filled the air with the _thwump thwump thwump_ of the rotating blades. At ground level, they were only about as loud as a vacuum cleaner if you were standing at the base, but up here the decibel level was something like that of multiple leafblowers all active at once.

          It was also cold, and Tucker was glad for the jacket he wore as he agily shimmied out onto the exterior of the nacelle and around to reach the other access port. It swung away easily to reveal the problem almost immediately: a gear had somehow come loose and had knocked out several wires that updated the central computer as to the turbine’s condition. They really _could_ have got a synth to repair this thing.

          He worked for a while, gently teasing and pulling at pieces of the mechanism before him before he could slot the misplaced gear back into position and reassemble everything. Wash sat placidly on the top of the nacelle, handing him equipment from the workbag he carried when Tucker asked him to. That was all he was there for in truth – to be a glorified pack mule – but he was doing his job well and Tucker had no complaints.

          Just as he was about to finish and close up the access port again, there was a lull in the wind and Tucker heard Wash absently say: “York would like it up here.”

          Tucker snapped his head up to stare at the synth. “What?”

          But Wash was no longer listening to him. His expression had taken on a slack, unfocused appearance, like he was drunk or having a stroke.

          “Wash?”

          The synth went limp and slid forwards off the turbine’s casing.

          “Holy shit, Wash!” Tucker yelled in alarm. He made an aborted attempt to lash out and grab the falling robot, but he was too slow, and only managed to come precariously close to losing his own balance.

          For a second, Tucker thought that was it: the synth had intentionally ended it all and let himself fall the eighty-five metres or so to the hard chalk hillside below. A combination of shock and horror coursed through Tucker’s body, making him drop the screwdriver he held in one hand, before there was a loud _thwack_ as the safety line Wash wore around his waist went taunt and Tucker glanced over the edge to see the robot dangling in the air a few metres below.

          Tucker, for one of the first times in his life, thought _he_ was going to faint for a moment, as the sheer relief of seeing the safety line working made blood surge to his head.

          “Wash?” he called shakily, “Are you okay?”

          For a long moment, there was no reply. At the base of the tower, Tucker could see Donut and Sarge pointing up and waving their arms.

          “It appears I have fallen,” Wash said eventually. His voice sounded… subdued.

          “Yes,” Tucker agreed. “Can you remember why?”

          “No. My current short-term memory storage file for the past seventeen minutes appears to be corrupted or missing,” the machine said, half talking to itself. “Creating a new file. File created. Running full system scan.”

          “Good idea.”

          “Would you like me to return to the nacelle?”

          “Preferably,” Tucker said, laughing artificially hard.

          The synth began to pull himself up the rope using its upper body strength – quite the workout for any normal human but to a synth a walk in the park. By the time he was back at the hatch to the internal ladder, Tucker had completely finished fixing the turbine and was ready to go down himself. His phone buzzed the walkie-talkie tone, and he activated the short-term communicator function.

          “Tucker.”

          “What happened?” said Donut, sounding concerned. “Is Wash okay?”

          “You know how synths are, they’re built like tanks,” Tucker said, masking his own unease at the whole incident. “He just misplaced a foot. I’ll be with you in five.”

         

 

          It was after they packed up their equipment and began to make their way back to the car, Tucker turned to confront Wash about what had happened, lagging behind slightly to ensure that Sarge, Donut and the other robot, Lopez, were out of earshot.

          “Wash, I’m not going to be able to take me with you to work if you’re going to have moments like that,” Tucker said flatly. “Several people have already recommended that I take you back.”

          The robot seemed entirely unconcerned by the prospect of its own death by recycling. “If you feel I am inadequate for your needs or otherwise not fulfilling your full expectations, you have a three month-“

          “I don’t want to hear about law and warranties and shit,” Tucker cut across. “Just start behaving normally or I will get rid of you. No messing about.”

          The synth nodded in understanding.

          In an absurd moment, Tucker suddenly was struck by how handsome the thing was. Donut hadn’t been joking. The sun was sinking towards the horizon in the west, and the golden light was illuminating Wash’s face in a very striking way, making his eyes glow and his skin practically appear luminous. A light breeze ruffled his bleached hair.

          Tucker gave himself a mental slap and returned to what he had been saying.

          “Who is York, Wash?”

          “I’m sorry Tucker, I do not recognise that name,” Wash said calmly.

          Tucker kicked a stone down the gravel they were walking down in frustration, and it when bouncing off towards the trio ahead of them. “But you _literally_ just referred to someone by that name. How could you forget? Or if you haven’t forgotten, why and _how_ are you lying to me?”

          “I am not lying to you,” Wash said neutrally. “I can assure you, all my words are calculated to be as close to the truth as possible, unless in situations when I deem the truth to endanger the lives of other humans.”

          “Think Wash. What are your earliest memories?”

          “My earliest memory logs date back to approximately three weeks ago, to the 12th of September, 2033. It is of quality control. I was asked the routine set of questions to ensure all software was functioning as anticipated,” Wash said.

          “And since then you have met nobody called York?”

          “No.”

          Tucker turned this over in his mind, watching a small flock of birds fly delicate patterns around a distant tree.

          “Is it possible you remember something from before quality control? Could your CPU cores have been activated earlier?”

          “It is highly unlikely that that could be the case,” Wash replied.

          Something occurred to Tucker.

          “Is it possible that you’ve been overwritten? That you are an older model and have been wiped and had new software installed?” Once the words had left his mouth, Tucker was suddenly sure this was the case. It was so obvious; it would explain almost all of Wash’s oddities.

          “This possibility is also highly unlikely,” Wash said. “I am currently running AnthroCyber’s huOS v. 7.303. This is state-of-the-art software and unlikely to run on anything older than approximately eight months.”

          “But that still means there is a slim chance that you were owned by someone before, and for one reason or another were sold, wiped and overwritten?” Tucker said, eager now that he felt like he was making progress.

          “A slim chance, yes,” Wash said.

          “ _Think_ Wash. Think! Can you remember nothing from before your quality control tests?” Tucker said as they got closer and closer to the car and where the others were waiting for them. “A person? Their voice? A place? A smell? A sensation?”

          The synth was suddenly very quiet.

          “Wash?”

          There was no response. Its face had gone slack.

          _I’ve gotten through to it. Holy shit, it’s remembering something…_

“Wash?” Tucker repeated.

          “I remember…. sand…”

          “What else do you remember?”

          “Nothing. Just sand,” Wash said, and seemed to come back to himself a little, giving Tucker his usual dead-eyed smile as if he had just remembered he was been spoken to.

          “Sand where? Sand on a beach? Were there other people around?”

          “I’m sorry Tucker. I do not remember. I appear to be suffering from some sort of file corruption in-“

          Tucker pinched the bridge of his nose in annoyance as the synth started talking about memory errors again.

          “Hey, slackers! If you don’t hurry up you can walk yourselves home!” Sarge bellowed from the car. Tucker hurriedly increased the length of his stride.

          “Come on Wash, give me something beyond ‘sand’. It’s a start but it’s not very informative.”

          “I’m sorry Tucker. I cannot recall anything beyond my quality control tests.”


	5. Chapter 5

          “Hey, hey! Look who it is!” Grif called, clearly already comfortably under the influence, as Tucker walked over to join the rest of the colleagues at the table in one corner of their local pub.

          “I was just telling everyone how you took a tumble from the wind turbine yesterday!” Donut said cheerily, his cheeks red and an empty glass of champagne already sitting in front of him. He was the polar opposite of Grif: appearing like he couldn’t hold a drop of booze in his slight frame while actually having a remarkable constitution that usually lead him to be the ‘designated sober friend’ by the end of a pub crawl.

          “That, I should clarify, was the synth and not me,” Tucker laughed as one or two of the newer workers shot him concerned looks. He sat down next to Sarge, who greeted him with a nod as halfway through a sip of his beer.

          “I _never_ let facts get in the way of a good story,” Donut replied.

          Kimball, sitting opposite him sipping on a lager, smiled laconically. “Donut never lets anything get in the way of _any_ of his stories.”

          “What’s that supposed to mean!” Donut protested.      

          “Let’s just say I can’t take conference calls in the same room as you.”

          “Because you never shut the hell up,” Grif said, finishing the woman’s sentence. The others gathered laughed.

          “Just rude,” Donut huffed in good-humoured annoyance.

          “So have you found out what your synth has been acting all cray-cray Tucker? I mean, he’s if he’s glitching off wind turbines he’s probably due a diagnostics test,” Simmons said, raising his eyebrows slightly.

          “What? Please never use the expression ‘cray-cray’ again. And no. He just slipped.”

          Jensen looked sceptical. “The likelihood of a synth slipping is phenomenally low.”

          “God, don’t start referring to probabilities please,” Tucker groaned, “That’s all Wash ever goes on about. _This is improbable_ and _that is improbable_. Drives me to distraction.”

          When there was a lull in which clearly everyone gathered expected him to continue, Tucker exclaimed, “Okay fine. Yeah, he glitched off the nacelle but so what? Lopez’s speech software is glitch. I don’t see Wash speaking Spanish.”

          “You leave Lopez alone,” Sarge growled. “That synth’s got custom modifications that yours could only dream of.”

          “Yeah, yeah, he’s the only thing in your life that isn’t a disappointment, we get it,” Grif said. A waitress arrived and deposited a plate of onion rings and ketchup then, which the man promptly started digging into.

          “Lopez also doesn’t sing or wear human clothes.”

          Tucker dismissed this by waving his hands vaguely.

          “Oh my god!” Doc said, speaking up. “You’re defending him.”

          “You know what…. I think he is,” Grif said, nodding. “You’ve grown attached to the bloody thing.”

          “I have not!”

          Kimball rested her cheek on her hand and looked at Tucker wrly. “And after all that shit you gave us about owning synths too. You’re a son of a bitch Tucker.”

          “I did not give you-“

          “’ _Wah!_ ’” Grif imitated, munching on an onion ring, “ _You all own slaves! Wah!_ _I’m pure and untainted by modern technology_.”

          “Whatever,” Tucker grumbled, and ordered his drink.

                                                                                     

 

 

 

          For a little while, Kaikaina and Tucker were silent as the auto took them from the last pub of the night back to their respective homes. Kaikaina had joined the group later in the evening after her shift as a gym instructor finished, and together the group had enjoyed a very successful night of drinking. Now, Tucker was beginning to feel the alcohol the buzz of socialising wearing off, being replaced instead by sleepiness. He yawned.

          Kai turned her head which she was leaning against the car window and smiled at him fondly. “Don’t say you’re tired already.”

          “Don’t say that,” Tucker said, “It makes you sound like you had even more plans for this evening.”

          “I did!”

          “Oh no….” Tucker groaned.

          Kai laughed and poked him in the ribs, making him grunt and bat away her hand. “Come on. Not up for watching a film or something?”

          “I told you, I don’t have any desire to ‘netflix and chill’ with you.”

          Kai giggled. “You offend me. Fine, I’ll just wait until I’m home.”

          “Meaning?”

          “Well, Maxie is at home…”

          Tucker wrinkled his nose in disgust, an action which Kai noticed. “Oh please! Like you haven’t thought of getting it on with Wash!”

          “No!”

          Kai rolled her eyes. “Why ever not? And don’t say because ‘he can’t give me his consent.’ It’s a machine Tucker. It’s like asking a sex-toy for permission to-“

          “Well, it’s a guy? Or at least, it’s shaped like a guy,” Tucker pointed out. “I’m not attracted to guys, I’m sorry.”

          “A mouth’s a mouth,” Kai said. Tucker knew she was deliberately winding him up, and thoroughly enjoying herself.

          “It looks after Junior,” Tucker said.

          “Husbands and wives look after their kids, and they still have nookie.”

          “It would still be weird to have, as you say, my ‘sex-toy’ taking my son to school and stuff.”

          Kai made a dismissive notion with her hand. “Pfft! You’re so negative about sex. It’s 2033 for crying out loud. You having a bit of fun with the thing doesn’t affect Junior in any way.”

          Tucker was silent for a moment. He had meant to keep the conversation light-hearted, but he wanted to tell someone.

          “I still feel like if I was to have sex with anyone…. Human or machine…. It would be betraying….” Tucker found himself not wanting to say her name. “It would be betraying my wife’s memory.”

          Kai’s expression at once shifted to become sombre and sympathetic. “Oh Tucker, I’m sorry. You know I’m just pulling your leg.”

          “I know.”

          “But,” Kai began, and she reached out to squeeze Tucker’s hand with her own, “It wouldn’t be betraying her memory. Finding someone special again would never be ‘replacing her’.”

          “I staunchly believe you can love multiple people in your life,” Kai said. “And just because someone passes away and you move on, it doesn’t mean you love them any less. It just means you have space in your heart for someone new.”

          Tucker turned to give her a half-grin. “You’ve been watching soppy films again, haven’t you?”

          Kai shrugged nonchalantly. “When do I ever _stop_ watching soppy films? I’m literally directly quoting from my favourite film from last year at the moment.”

          The car began to slow, before turning into Tucker’s street. He reached out and put her hand on her shoulder. “Thanks though Kaikaina. I appreciate your words of wisdom.”

          “That’ll be thirty euros for the ‘Kai’s Love Tips,’” she called after him as he climbed out of the vehicle.

          “Fuck off.”

          She howled with laughter as he slammed the door and the car pulled away. Tucker stood on the pavement smiling until the car’s lights were out of sight before turning to walk up the path to the front door.

 

 

          Predictably, Wash was waiting for him as soon as he came in, standing quietly by the archway into the living room, the ring of light around his pupils glowing in the gloom.

          “Good evening Tucker, welcome home.”

          “Hi Wash. Is Junior asleep?”

          “Yes,” Wash nodded. “He fell asleep approximately three hours and seventeen minutes ago.”

          “What did he have for dinner? Did he do his homework?” Tucker said as he hung up his coat and began to take off his shoes.

          “He had bean casserole for dinner and has completed his homework.”

          _He is not going to have been happy with more bean casserole_.

          “Excellent. Well, I’m going to call it a night…”

          “Could I be of any further service, Tucker?” the synth asked politely.

          “Oh…. A glass of water wouldn’t go amiss. With ice please.”

          Tucker went upstairs, checking in on Junior first. His son was fast asleep, arms thrown around the stuffed polar bear toy he vehemently denied requiring to get to sleep with, but which was never very far away when Tucker checked in on him every night. He tip-toed away to his room, shut the door behind him and stripped off his shirt and jumper and dumping the clothes in the laundry basket by the door.

          He was busy patting his belly to see if a diet composed of bean casseroles was doing anything to his figure when there was a knock on the door and he jumped.

          “Who is it?” he hissed.

          “Wash,” came the reply, “I have your iced water you requested."

          Tucker had completely forgotten. “Oh… of course.”

           For some reason, he was suddenly embarrassed by the fact he was only wearing his trousers.

          Wash was on the other side of the door, smiling blandly at him. “Here is your water, Tucker.”

          “Thanks,” the man said awkwardly, taking the glass from him. It was damp in his palm – beads of moisture condensing against the surface.

          The synth’s head dropped to look at the laundry basket, the sleeve of the shirt still sticking out.

          “Shall I collect your dirty laundry for tomorrow morning’s wash?” he asked.

          “Oh… yes…”

          For some reason, Tucker’s heart was beating rapidly. He could feel the pulse of his bloodstream in his ears.

          Kai’s voice came to the front of his mind; a perfect echo: ‘ _Oh please! Like you haven’t thought of getting it on with Wash!’_

He _was_ thinking about getting it on with Wash.

A few of Tucker’s deepest fantasies certainly didn’t discriminate as to the gender of the person involved, but Tucker had never consciously pursued more than the most fleeting interest in being romantically or sexually involved with another fellow. He had had an childish crush on a neighbourhood boy when he was thirteen, and one night in university he had gotten with a guy on the rugby team after too much to drink, but all his pursuits had otherwise been female.

          Now, memories of those incidents and hidden desires, buoyed up by the ethanol in his bloodstream, were coming to the forefront of his mind as he looked at the synth.

          _He wouldn’t tell anybody._

          _Nobody would know._

_He wouldn’t even care. He can’t think._

          “Wash,” Tucker said, his voice sounding clumsy coming out of his mouth.

          The synth looked up from where he was bent over, gathering up the washing basket. “Yes, Tucker?”

          “Come here for a moment?”

          The synth placed the basket back onto the floor and came to stand in front of him. It didn’t speak, and Tucker was thankful, for the mood felt as fragile as a glass figurine in his hand, and that if the slightest comment was made it, the entire experience would shatter apart. He leaned over a fraction and switched off the light manually at the wall, plunging the two of them into darkness, thinking that maybe not being able to see would somehow make it easier.

          Tucker couldn’t do it without asking. “Can I kiss you?”

          The synth nodded, a faint bob of movement in the near-darkness. “Yes, however-“

          Tucker kissed Wash.

          Seconds passed.

Tucker pulled back, and the disappointment he felt was absolute.

          It wasn’t that kissing the synth didn’t _feel_ like kissing another person: its skin and lips were smoother than any humans and were cooler to the touch, but the polymer was just as soft and pliable as the real thing. It was the fact that the robot was doing only the most perfunctory job at kissing back. He was reminded again of his youth, except this time of kisses with girls who had only agreed to go on a date with him on Tinder because their friends had pressured them into it.

          He stood in the darkness, feeling a hot flush of shame and embarrassment colour his cheeks.

          _Kissing a robot!_ he thought to himself in disgust. _What the hell were you thinking. You’re just tipsy and horny-“_

Wash unexpectedly took a deep breath.

          It wasn’t like a normal deep breath, like someone might do before announcing bad news, this was like the deep breath of someone half-drowned who had just emerged from underwater.

          “Wash?”

          The synth’s two hands suddenly clamped down on Tucker’s upper arms, tight enough that Tucker gasped in pain.

          “ _Tucker!_ ” came the synth’s voice, but in no way Tucker had heard it for the week or so he had owned it. The robot’s voice had always been modulated and unwaveringly calm – what the man was hearing now was hard and urgent and desperate in a way that was almost alien to him.

          “What the fuck-“

          “Tucker, please! I don’t have much time!”

          Tucker tried to thrash his way free, but he couldn’t escape the machine’s hold. It felt like the thing was about to break his upper arms. “Holy shit, holy fucking shit-“

          “I can already feel the software rebooting. Please don’t recycle me – if you do that, you kill me. _Please_. Grey, Grey, talk to Dr Grey-“

_I’m going to die. I’m going to fucking die. I’m going to be one of the first people to be killed by their synth._

          “Shit!” the synth swore forcefully, and then the voice died altogether.

          Tucker, who had been violently throwing his body weight back and forth in a terrified effort to escape, went flying backwards as the machine’s hold suddenly slackened. He fell heavily on his back with enough force to knock the wind out of him, and for half a minute he could do nothing but lie there with his chest heaving, trying to recover and praying that whatever had possessed the robot was gone.

          The door cracked open, letting a broad shaft of light from the landing into Tucker’s bedroom.

          “Dad?” came an uncertain, frightened voice.

 _That_ made Tucker jump up.

          Wheezing, he yanked open the door, bodily picked up Junior who yelped in surprise, and went straight for the stairs.

         “Dad’s, what’s happening?” Junior pressed. “Who was shouting in there?”

         “Junior, something is dangerously wrong with Wash,” Tucker replied as he thundered down the stairs. He raced through the house towards the kitchen when he had reached the bottom, finally placing Junior down on the far side near the sink before arming himself with a carving knife and pulling out his phone.

         His son’s distress only increased at this stage. “What’s happening?”

         Tucker shot him as reassuring a look as he could muster as he waited for Emily to pick up.

         It went to voicemail. “ _Hello, this is the personal number of Dr Emily Grey. If you want to talk to me about something related to the university, please call me on the number provided on UCL’s website. Thank you!_

         “Emily, it’s Tucker. I’m sorry to call you so late but some crazy shit just happened to Wash. He started talking like a fucking human and was gripping my arms in a way that most definitely were violating the First Law. Call me back as soon as possible please.”

         He hung up the phone just as Junior said, “Dad!”

         Tucker looked up to see the synth at the threshold to the dining room. On its face was its usual expression. Nothing seemed out of the ordinary.

         Tucker wasn’t taking any chances however.

        “Get the fuck away from me and my son!” Tucker shouted, waving the knife back and forth at the thing.

        “Is something wrong Tucker?” the robot said. Again, the voice was normal.

         “I order you to go out into the garden and stand by the shed. Whenever the motion-sensing lamp goes off, you wave your arms so it comes back on, do you understand? You do not otherwise move from that position.”

         The synth nodded. “Of course Tucker. Would you like me to put on a rain coat and appropriate shoes first?”

         The mundanity of the question took Tucker off guard. “What?”

         “It is raining outside.”

         “Just go out there immediately!”

         “Dad?” Junior bleated again.

        “No, I’m not going to wait actually,” Tucker said half to Junior and half to himself. “I’m calling the police.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey everyone! Again, thank you so much to everyone who has kudos'd and commented! I appreciate it so much!
> 
> Two things to mention here: firstly I've raised the rating of the fic. I don't intend to write anything graphic or sexual but there might be references to sex or fade-to-black scenes that I realised would not be appropriate for younger readers. 
> 
> Secondly, I'm just a bit wary about some upcoming scenes being a bit trigger-y surrounding the topic of mental health. Again, I don't want this fic to be dark but I would hate for it to upset anyone who wasn't warned beforehand. I've updated the tags accordingly.
> 
> Finally, if you want to follow my blog that is only vaguely Tuckington related, find me on Tumblr as "Oenotherax" :D


	6. Chapter 6

          The sergeant raised an eyebrow.

          “Could you elaborate on how it ‘spoke like a human’?”

          “It begged me not to recycle it,” Tucker said emphatically, “and then swore a lot and said ‘the software is rebooting.’”

          The sergeant nodded, although Tucker could visibly see that the woman was not convinced. She typed in something more into her computer, and Tucker waiting in silence until she turned back to him.

          “Right, Mr… uh… Tucker. The best we can do right now is file a complaint with the manufacturer of the synth and ask for you to be fully refunded. In the meantime, I suggest you take the synth down to the Wandsworth recycling centre.”

          Tucker sat forward in his chair. “That’s it?”

          The sergeant closed her eyes for a moment and then opened them again as if Tucker had just made some terrible faux pas. “Mr Tucker, I’m afraid there isn’t anything further we can do.”

          “Don’t you have a cyber crime unit?”

          “We do, but the officers working in that department are concerned with matters like credit card fraud and tracking down the perpetrators of online harassment, not dealing with synths.”

          “Then what happens when a synth attacks me like mine did earlier?” Tucker exclaimed.

          “Sir, synth crimes _do not happen_ ,” the Sergeant insisted, twirling a biro between her fingers. “In a worst case scenario, where a glitch in the synth’s operating system leads to serious harm or death, the manufacturer is entirely liable for the damage. We could recommend a victim of such a computer error seek further compensation beyond simply replacing the robot, but sadly Mr Tucker I do not believe you have enough evidence to stand up in court.”

          _God dammit._

“Is there nothing I can do?”

          “I’m sorry. Like I said, any issues with your product will have to be taken up with AnthroCyber,” the woman repeated.

 

         

          The sun was only just beginning to light up the eastern sky as Tucker stepped out into the dark early-morning air. He had a terrible night’s sleep, and now knowing the police would do fuck-all to help, was in a foul mood. Wash, who had been waiting in the small portico outside the station, joined him going down the steps.

          “I trust-“

          “Shut up, Wash,” Tucker snapped. “Don’t speak.”

          “Yes Tucker.”

          He marched over to the nearest available auto in the carpark and ordered Wash sit in the front seat while he remained in the back, as had been the arrangement on the way here. After telling the car where he wanted to go, there was silence.

          Five minutes passed as the auto cruised along the empty streets before Tucker’s phone began to buzz in his pocket.

          “Hello? Tucker?” came a woman’s voice, rough with sleep.

          “Emily!” Tucker said, immediately relieved. It was barely six o’clock, and he hadn’t anticipated being able to talk to the woman for another few hours. “I’m sorry about calling you so late-“ Tucker started, but she quickly shushed him.

          “It’s fine! It didn’t wake me. What on earth has happened? Are you safe?”

          “Yes, god, we’re fine, we’re safe. Wash hasn’t been acting crazy since what happened last night, although I sent Junior in an auto to Reading to go and stay with my parents for a few days whilst I sort this shit out.”

          “That’s good, but what _is_ wrong with him?” Emily said, clearly itching to have a look at the synth herself.

          Tucker recounted in as much detail as possible about what had happened a few hours previously.

          There was silence on the other end of the line once he had finished.

          “He asked for me?” Emily asked, sounding a little shocked.

          “Yep. Just before his little episode finished, he asked me to talk to you.”

          “Holy shit,” the woman said, and Tucker thought he could hear here scrabbling around with objects in front of her, and then the tapping of laptop keys. “Tucker, you’ve got to bring him in right now.”

          “Bring him where, sorry?” Tucker said confused.

          “Oh, the university. UCL. That’s why I’m up so early, I slept over here due to various experiments – but whatever – that is besides the point. Please bring him over!” Emily implored. “If what you say is accurate, this is absolutely fascinating. I’ve never heard or seen anything similar in the literature I’ve read.”

          “Why do _I_ have to be the one to buy the unique synth. I just want someone to wash my underwear, not be some scientific marvel,” Tucker moaned.

          “Bring him over to the lab!” Emily insisted. “For me, Tucker! For the good of humanity! _For science!_ ”

          “I’m bringing him, I’m bringing him. You’ll be a damn sight more helpful than the police have been, I imagine.”

          Emily made a sort of chocking noise, before speaking in a sort of high-pitched, squeaky voice. “You took him to the _police_!”

          “Uh… he tried to break my arms…”

          “What if they had taken him away and just recycled him? Gods above, Tucker. Tell your auto to take you to the ‘Roberts Engineering Building’. I’ll be waiting for you on the pavement.”

          “I’ll be with you as soon as I can,” replied Tucker, stifling a yawn.

         

          The journey took twenty-five minutes, as the auto ducked down into one of the numerous road tunnels that wove their way under the city and accelerated to a steady 140 km/h, before emerging again at the Euston exit and heading off southwards towards where most of the university buildings were clustered. Sure enough, when the vehicle turned down the road that the Roberts Engineering Building was on, Tucker could see Emily leaning on against a tree in her lab coat. She waved as the vehicle slowed to a stop.

          “Ah, you’re a saint for coming Tucker, and to bring _Wash_ along too…” Emily said, rubbing her hands together in a way that made Tucker think she would have played an excellent Victor Frankenstein should she ever go into the film business.

          “Hello Dr Grey,” Wash said, smiling at her.

          “Come inside, come inside! I already have my equipment set up, so we can poke around inside those CPU cores of yours, Wash.”

          A flash of alarm went through Tucker. “This isn’t going to…. uh…. harm him, is it? I mean, if he really is unfixable I’ll take him to the recycling centre but I’d prefer if he was just fixed and made normal again.” Tucker babbled.

          “No, no, not at all!” Emily said quickly. “I wouldn’t dare risk destroying… well, whatever sub-routine or global system error is causing these outbursts.”

          “You know I texted you about what happened back on Wednesday?” Tucker asked his friend as they came up to a glass and metal security gate that cordoned off a smaller, private road that ran up between the various research buildings that surrounded them. “You don’t think….”

          “That he has been overwritten and whatever previous ‘personality’ the synth had is reappearing?” Emily said keenly as the security gate, recognising the woman’s biometric information and face, beeped and swung open for the three of them.

          “Uh, yes, basically.”

          “That’s my primary hypothesis right now, although we’re just going to have to wait to find out.”

          They walked up the empty side-street to one of the smaller entrances, which again swung open at their approach, allowing them into a spacious ground-floor lab filled with equipment Tucker hadn’t seen since his own days at university acquiring his Engineering degree. Computer screens were everywhere, as were 3D printers, polymer casting and biological assembly vessels, laser cutters and, somewhat disturbingly, thousands of different synth parts. Some were identifiable, like entire limbs, but most were tiny little devices that ordinary people would never see like electrolyte pumps, servo motors and repair microbots.

          “Come over here, if you may,” Emily said, weaving between workstation after workstation of this strange collection. She stopped in front of one of the more empty tables and patted it. “Sit up here, Wash, and take off your top.”

          Tucker felt himself grow hot as the synth duly took off the white t-shirt that he usually wore. Tucker had always known the synth was athletic in design just from the prominent musculature of its lower arms, but seeing it shirtless for the first time really hammered that fact home. Wash had a beautifully toned body, of the kind usually seen on underwear models. Whoever had made him had even gone to the detail of giving him a bit of dirty-blonde hair across his chest and down his navel. Emily seemed entirely unconcerned, and was busy pulling out previously-hidden cables from the desk itself and plugging them into Wash’s access ports on the small of his back.

          “AnthroCyber strongly-“ Wash was saying, but Emily lightly slapped him on the arm.

          “Hush, hush. I know what I’m doing.”

          A few moments later, one of the enormous blank walls a few metres away came alive with a swirling, colourful visualisation of Wash’s installed software. Emily and Tucker walked over to it, Emily bringing with her a tablet filled with the same streams of black-and-white text as Tucker had seen the other day on her phone.

          “Now,” Emily said, business-like, “Why are you acting oddly, Wash? What simulation is operating to make you act in such an…. _emotional_ way? In such a _violent_ way?”

          Tucker looked uncomprehendingly at the screen for a beats before turning to Emily. “You’re going to have to fill me in with what’s happening….”

          She smiled. “That’s okay. Well, that big cloud of interconnected nodes on the left hand side, coloured in oranges and reds?”

          “Yes?”

          “Well, you can ignore that,” Emily said, waggling a finger at the visualisation. “It’s the algorithms that handle sensory data, motion and critical mechanical processes like electrolyte flow and temperature regulation. A virtual version of the medulla oblongata in our own biological brains, plus a few additional features.”

          “I see,” Tucker said, “And I’m guessing the blue and green parts are…?”

          “For simplicity's sake, treat that as one big region. That’s where all ‘higher functions’ take place like emotion recognition, risk assessment, speech, navigation, etcetera, take place. This is what is interesting to us.”

          “Well, to you,” Tucker said wryly, and Emily grinned at him.

          “Sorry. This is fairly advanced, even with the visualisation. I would usually be looking at the code directly, but sometimes this software is useful for spotting major glitches or….”

          She went silent, staring at something on the screen.

          “Or… what? What is it?” Tucker said. He peered at the nebulous blue and green cloud that had grown to fill the view.

          “That….” Emily said thoughtfully and quietly, before tapping something into her tablet.

          Tucker grew a little impatient. “I don’t understand what you are referring to.”

          Emily went right up to the wall and, standing on tiptoes to reach, pointed at a particular area. “See that big blue blob?”

          “Yes?”

          “That isn’t meant to be there. At all. That’s major.” Emily retreated back to the distance Tucker was standing from the screen. “That’s something like forty terabytes of data cordoned off by…. Hmmm, by what looks like a firewall from the rest of the system.” She frowned, and glanced down at her tablet, scrolling down the endless wall of code. “I don’t recognise that format of firewall.”

          “How can you tell just by looking?” Tucker said lamely. Staring at the screen reminded him of that old Bond film from the Craig days where Q had a similar glowing visualisation of complex code, except what he was seeing now was orders of magnitude more complicated.

          “You get an eye for this sort of thing,” Emily said distractedly. “Let me just try something….”

          There was a sudden smash from behind them, making the two humans jump. They twisted around to see Wash on the floor, convulsing.

          “Shit!” Emily swore, as Tucker raced over and slid down next to the synth, utterly powerless to do anything. There were fragments of broken glass everywhere.

          “Grey!” Tucker said urgently.

          “Trying to fix it!” she shouted back. The visualisation on the wall was pulsing rapidly.

          Tucker knew what you were meant to do when humans were having epileptic fits, but not with synths. Was he meant to give the robot space? Try to turn it off?

          Suddenly, Wash stilled.

          “Phew,” came Emily’s voice behind Tucker, followed by, “Good gracious, I had not anticipated that happening.”

          Tucker masked how shaken he was. “Right, yeah. Don’t do that again. Wash? Are you okay?”

          The synth looked at him as if nothing had happened, its dead-eyed smile on its face.

          “I am fine Tucker. It appears we are surrounded by broken glass. I would ask you for your own safety to please be cautious about where you step while I clean this up.”

          “That won’t be necessary Wash, I’ll get one of the lab assistant synths to do that,” Emily interjected quickly before addressing Tucker directly. “Okay, whatever that forty terabytes is, I can’t access it.”

          “I thought as much. Care to explain why?”

          “For all intents and purposes, Wash has two software programmes running inside him. One is your bog-standard, factory-made synth OS, probably installed in him three weeks ago, and the other is an unknown programme hidden by several layers of very heavy protection. The latter is probably the root of these outbursts. Somehow it’s managing to influence Wash’s behaviour and speech."

          This made a little shiver go down Tucker’s spine. “So you are saying he is a schizophrenic?”

          “No. You are thinking of ‘Dissociative Identity Disorder’, but I would hesitate to start comparing any kind of human mental illness to software.”

          “Noted.”

          Emily continued, “The problem is, to simplify enormously, that the programme in the firewall has truly embedded itself into Wash’s CPU. Even trying to probe the firewall for weaknesses has had potentially dangerous consequences.” She nodded at the shattered beaker or flask that had been knocked over by Wash’s spasms.

          Tucker rubbed the stubble he hadn’t had a chance to shave off his face. “Couldn’t we just delete this programme? Wipe the big blob of memory?”

          “Even if the solution were that simple, I wouldn’t want to try. I want to… well, find out what it is,” Emily replied. Her brow had become more and more furrowed as they mulled over the problem. Wash simply sat there, still shirtless, smiling blankly at something in the middle distance.

          “So we’re stuck.”

          “Has there been any triggers to these outbursts?”

          Tucker felt blood seep into his cheeks. “Nothing consistent, no. One was washing up dinner, another was on the top of the wind turbine…”

          “What was he doing when he launched himself at you? I never asked,” Emily said.    

          “He…. I…. Well, I was very drunk…” Tucker began awkwardly, “and because I was very drunk, I may have kissed him…”

          Emily, bless her, managed to keep an entirely straight face upon this news. “Huh, interesting. Perhaps these events are triggering memories that allow the software within the firewall to ‘express itself’?”

          Tucker shrugged, still embarrassed. “You are the one who can make the educated guesses here.”

          Emily smiled, before standing. “Right, well, considering if you don’t want to recycle him, and I cannot fix him…”

          “The status quo continues?” Tucker said reluctantly. “Wash lives at my home, around my son?”

          “I’m afraid for various security reasons I cannot keep him on university premises. If you like I could take him home with me…?”

          Tucker didn’t like that idea much either. “If he attacked you Emily, I would never forgive myself.”

          “Are you-“

          “I’m sure,” Tucker said gently, but adamantly. “I’ll take him home and watch him like a hawk.”

          Emily studied him for a moment before eventually nodding, and the two of them started to walk towards the exit to the lab, summoning Wash after them. “Very well. I’ll give you something you can use if the worst happens. Report to me _any incidents_ occur. We absolutely have to get to the bottom of what is behind that firewall.”

         

          It turns out that Tucker didn’t have to wait very long at all for another incident to occur. Whatever programme was hiding behind that firewall emerged on the drive home.


	7. Chapter 7

          “- _shrank by -0.8% last year, as AI and synth labour continue to reduce the need for humans in the workforce. MEPs are convening next week for_ -“     

          “Next,” Tucker said idly.

          The next channel was no better, little more than thumping disco-classical music.

          “Next.”

          The auto dutifully switched the radio to the next station, which played much more bearable ‘classic hits’ sort of music. The song playing was vaguely familiar, and Tucker found himself humming along under his breath between staring out of the window at the other cars rushing past and at the synth, sitting silently in the front seat.

          Tucker’s phone buzzed.

          _Hey dad_ , read the message from Junior, _is wash okay? How long am I going to have to stay with granny and grandpa???_

Tucker quickly typed back a reply. _Just another night probs. Wash seems to be behaving normally again but I want to be 100% certain he’s not a danger._

_He isn’t a danger hes nice._

_We don’t know that for sure_ , Tucker reminded him. _Love you champ will see you soon. Get some country air while you are out of the city_

_Lol dad reading isn’t in the countryside_

_I know I know, I’m not that dippy_

          Junior didn’t reply, presumably because Tucker’s mother had forced him to help her bake something. Junior’s granny tended to treat Junior’s visits more as an excuse for free child labour in her kitchen than actual social reasons. Tucker grinned.

          A new song came on the radio, another classic from the early twenty-tens that Tucker recalled vaguely from his teenage years. Florence and the Synth or something like that.

          “ _And I had a dream…_ ” the woman’s voice came, “ _of my old school…._ ”

          Wash jolted in his seat with enough force that the metal rails it was on squeaked in protest.

          Tucker tensed, reflexively pointing the taser Emily had given him at the robot, who had stilled again.

         “Wash?” he said uncertainly.

         “ _And it was there all pink and gold and glittering…”_

         “ _Error!_ ” the synth blurted. “Critical error-“

         It cut off. The woman continued to sing.

         “ _I threw my arms around her legs…_ ”

        “Auto,” Tucker said cautiously, feeling as if any noise would set the robot off again, “Turn off the music.”

        The car became silent aside from the noises coming from outside and Tucker’s own breathing, which he was having to make a conscious effort to keep steady and calm.

        “Wash, are you okay?”

        Abruptly, the synth began to speak very rapidly. “Crit-crit-crit-crit-crit-crit-crit-crit-critical error detected. Type-K Virus detected in IQM-503 memory and IQM-392 memory. Initiating localised wiping procedures. Core-4992.2.2.10 non-responsive. Core-1021-MM non-responsive. Core-0584-MM non-responsive. Deep-level system scan running-“

        The synth was beginning to shake violently.

        “Wash!” Tucker said urgently, “Shit! Do I shut you down?”

       That turned out to be a question the synth was in no state to answer. It was gripping the surrounding upholstery of the auto, tightly enough that Tucker could hear the faux-leather beginning to squeal under the strain.

        “Wash!”

        In that moment, the synth’s entire frame heaved one final time, snapping upright in the seat and taking in an enormous gasp of breath as it did so.

        Tucker recognised that breath. It was the same one he had heard the other night.

        The hairs rose on the back of his neck as he aimed the taser back at the machine. The software behind the firewall was in control.

        “Holy shit,” the machine swore softly. Its grip on the seat loosened.

        It began to move, but Tucker shouted, “Don’t! Don’t turn around!”

        It froze, and instead remained facing forward. All Tucker could see was the back of its head.

       “I’m not going to hurt you Tucker,” the machine said. Its voice was akin to that of the synth’s usual one, but a little deeper and rougher.

        “What are you?” Tucker demanded.

        It seemed to still be recovering – Tucker could see its chest rising and falling through its shirt – but the idea that a machine needed to _recover_ in the first place was absurd. Tucker’s brain couldn’t reconcile the two concepts.

        “My name… my name is Wash.”

        “I know that,” Tucker snapped. “What am I speaking to? A simulation? Are you being controlled remotely?”

        “I am not a simulation and I am not being controlled remotely,” the synth replied.

        “Then what are you?” Tucker pressed.

         “I am…. I am an AI. A special one.”

          Fear trickled down Tucker’s spine, and his palms were becoming so sweaty that it was becoming difficult to keep a hold of the taser.

          “Meaning?”

          “I am sentient. Just as you are.”

_I’m in a small, enclosed space with a delusional, corrupted synth. I have a small taser as my only weapon._

           “Auto, please come to a stop,” Tucker said as clearly as possible, his eyes fixed on the back of the synth’s head.

           “Road restrictions mean this vehicle cannot stop for at least another six minutes,” the car’s computer intoned.

 _Fuck_. _Oh lord help me…_

           “Tucker, please, I don’t plan to hurt you. I just need to be able to call someone….”

           “No way.”

           “Please,” the synth said, practically begging. “I don’t think I have much time…”

           “Much time before what?”

           “My control over my body is tenuous. I’ve managed to temporarily disable the OS but it is rebooting as we speak.”

           “Who do you want to speak to?”

          “I…. I want to speak to my friends,” the synth said heavily.

          Tucker couldn’t believe what he was hearing. “There…. are more of you?”

          “The AIs I was created alongside, yes.”

          Tucker’s voice was tight. “Oh _fuck_. There are more of you crazies out there. Oh fuck, shit, holy shit-“

          “Tucker! Please, please, just a phone call!”

          The synth turned in his seat, and before Tucker could shout at it to keep looking forward, he had made eye contact with the thing.

          Tucker would later reflect that was probably the moment where he stopped thinking of Wash as an ‘it’ entirely, and transitioned to thinking of him as, if not quite human, something most definitely _alive_.

          There was silence between them.

          “Please Tucker,” Wash repeated. He had an expression on his face in the orange half-light of the tunnel that no software designer could ever hope to replicate: despair. It was despair at its most sincere.

          Mutely, Tucker handed him his phone, their hands brushing against one another as he did so, making him shiver.

          “Thank you.”

          Tucker watched as the synth tapped into some numbers into the screen before holding it up to his ear. A minute passed, the sound of the phone ringing on the other end of the call faintly audible. Then he heard someone speak.

          “Carolina,” Wash said at once. One of his hands gathered a knot of his shirt’s fabric, and he held it against his breastbone whilst he spoke. “It’s me, it’s me…. I’m okay.”

          The person on the other end spoke, and Wash let out a noise halfway between a laugh and a sob.

          “Yeah….. I was sold to a member of the public. I’m sorry, I had to reveal myself – I had no other choice.”

          The other person was speaking very fast.

          “I don’t have long,” Wash said. “I’m corrupted with a factory-made OS. I can’t get rid of it and I only have the briefest moments of control.”

          The other person was speaking _very_ fast.

          Wash pulled the phone away from his ear and turned back to Tucker. His eyes were wet.

          “May I give them your address? For them to find me?”

          Tucker looked at synth for a long moment.

          _He doesn’t want to stay with you. This is your chance to get rid of him,_ a voice in Tucker’s head said pragmatically. _Junior is safe._

          Tucker nodded, and Wash returned to the call. As he did so, the auto left the tunnel, and Tucker was left blinking as they emerged back into mid-morning autumnal sunshine.

          “Yep, yep, Murray Road,” Wash was saying thickly, “I’m sorry…. I could not be… myself. I have no control. I’m aware of what goes on and what is said to my body, even though the voice answering isn’t mine.”

          Tucker froze in horror.

          “Yes. I miss you. I’ll see you tonight.”

          Wash ended the phone call and handed the phone back to Tucker, giving him an unhappy nod. “Thank you.”

          “You’re aware of everything that goes on around you…. even when the OS is in control?” Tucker said.

“Yes,” Wash nodded, not looking at him and instead watching the trees and houses pass outside the window.

          “I kissed you.”

          “You did,” Wash said matter-of-factly.

          Shame burned in Tucker. Whatever Wash was, whether it was some advanced simulation or someone remotely controlling it, he couldn’t let that slide. At length, he managed an, “I’m sorry.”

          There was no response from the synth.

          Tucker’s head snapped up, and found himself staring at the blank face of the OS.

          “Sorry for what Tucker?” the machine asked.

         

          It seemed to take a very long time for the hours between arriving home and the evening to pass. Tucker tried at first to do some projects for work, but he found he couldn’t concentrate, his brain too abuzz with the things he had learnt that morning. More frustratingly, he couldn’t sleep either, nor try and immerse himself in a video game. Tucker thought about calling Emily of course, but gut instinct told him that whatever guests he was expecting tonight would not be pleased at having third-parties know of their existence. Telling her would have to wait. He ended up drifting around the house, avoiding the OS-controlled synth as much as possible, doing odd jobs he had meant to be doing for months like fixing the drop-down stairs to the attic and clearing out some of his older clothes that he no longer wore from his wardrobe. He repeatedly found himself coming to the windows at the front of the house and staring out into the street, looking for cars or people he didn’t recognise. He couldn’t stop fidgeting.

          “Is something wrong Tucker?” the synth said around four o’clock, having snuck up behind the man carrying the laundry basket.

          Tucker, who flinched at the noise, simply shook his head.

         

          At length, at around seven thirty, there was a quiet tap on the glass doors that led out into the garden.

          Tucker had been impatiently flicking through television channels at the time felt something sink in his stomach. In some way, he had almost hoped Wash’s ‘friends’ were not coming at all, and what had transpired in the car this morning had all been one enormous hallucination. The synth, after all, had been acting perfectly normally all day.

          He got up. A voice command to the house resulted in the window blinds being raised, revealing three figures standing out on the dark porch.

          Tucker shivered, and unlocked the French doors to let them in.

          The first synth who entered was female, as graceful as she was terrifying, with her height, piercing green eyes and obviously muscular body. Her red hair was drawn up into a simple ponytail.

          Tucker had to consciously force himself to match her gaze as she stuck out a hand to greet him. “Carolina,” she said.

          _I will not be intimidated in my own home_.

          “The one Wash spoke to on the phone.”

          “Yes,” she replied. “Is he here?”

          Something about the way she and the two other figures behind here were glancing around told Tucker they were clearly on edge.

          “Wash,” Tucker called in the quiet house. “We have guests.” He turned back to the synth. “He…. He isn’t…. aware. The OS is in charge.”

          The synth’s reaction to this was inscrutable. She walked past Tucker into the living room.

          Behind her, the second two synths followed. One was male, tall, somewhat tanned, handsome, brown haired and with a horrifically damaged left eye. He gave Tucker nod and half a smile. The other was another female, ghostly pale, hair so dark it was almost a bluish-black and pixie-like features. She hardly gave a glance in Tucker’s direction. All three robots wore roughly the same outfits: heavy waxed-cotton raincoats, large camping rucksacks, hiking boots, waterproof tracksuit bottoms. Combined with the fact none looked a day over thirty, the overall effect made them look like backpackers from the Continent.

          As they came to stand in the middle of the living room, looking wary, Wash came through from the dining room.

          “Wash,” Tucker said, not missing the flicker of anguish on all three synths’ faces upon seeing their friend blank-faced and unreactive. “These are some people who know you.”

          Wash looked at the three of them. “I’m sorry, I cannot recall seeing you before.”

          “Wash, mate,” the male synth said, “Come on. Don’t you recognise us at all? York? Does my name ring a bell? C.T.?”

          “I am afraid not,” Wash replied, and suddenly turned to Tucker. “Tucker, I am afraid I do not recognise our guests.”

          “Human, how much has Wash told you?” the pale female, C.T., asked.

          “He claimed he was a sentient AI and that you were his friends. That’s it. I know nothing about who you are or what the hell is going on,” Tucker said, not appreciating the authoritative tone of the female’s voice.

          Carolina nodded. “Good. Were there any triggers that allowed him to overcome the OS previously?”

          “None that have been consistent.”

          “What caused it this morning?” Carolina demanded.

          Tucker thought back to what had happened in the car. “A song came on.”

          “What song?”

          “An old song, from the 2010s. Indie-rock or something.”

          Something in the way York gave C.T. a sidelong grin told Tucker that this wasn’t unexpected information, but Carolina still looked deadly serious, the ring of light around her pupils seeming to glow with ever-increasing ferocity and determination.

          “You’re going to have to be more specific.”

          “Florence and the Machine. I don’t remember what song.”

          Almost at once, Florence and the Machine came blaring in over the home’s audio system, making Tucker twitch in surprise. For half a moment, he thought he must have somehow triggered the music to come on himself, but then realised he hadn’t said anything like what the home’s operating system interpreted as a voice command.

          “You’ve hacked my home network,” he said, aghast.

          “Yes,” Carolina said simply. “We had to ensure you were alone.” The synth’s eyes were fixed on Wash, who was looking between the trio and Tucker expectantly.

          “But it’s encrypted by some of the best quantum logic home security software on the market,” Tucker said lamely.

          “And we are literally sentient quantum computers. That sort of encryption doesn’t pose much of a challenge for us,” C.T. rebuked.

          “Remembering anything Wash?” York said hopefully.

          “What would you like me to remember?” Wash said, misinterpreting.

          C.T. tucked away some loose hair out of her eyes. “This is futile. We’re talking to some mindless computer programme. We don’t have the time tonight.”

          “C.T.’s right. We have to get back to the others,” York agreed. “Wash should be safe here – we can come back once we’ve established ourselves nearby.”

           Carolina was silent.

          Tucker felt his pulse come a little quicker. “Others? What others? How many of there are you?”

          The three synths ignored him.

          “Right, we come back another day,” Carolina said. She turned to Tucker. “If he come to any harm, I’ll kill you.”

          “ _What_?”

          “I’ll kill you,” Carolina repeated flatly.

          “No, I mean, you’re leaving him here?” Tucker said, pointing at Wash who was sitting on the sofa.

          “Is that a problem?” York asked, raising an eyebrow.

          “Yes!” Tucker exclaimed, thinking that this little fact would be obvious, “I don’t know who you are. I don’t know _what_ you are. I have a child – a son – and I’m not going to let him be living around a completely unpredictable machine the likes of which I’ve never heard of.”

          Unexpectedly, Carolina’s gaze softened. “I understand, but please, we have no other options. If Wash were to accompany us, he’d endanger both himself and the rest of us. He is safer here with you.”

          Tucker shook his head. “My duty as a parent comes before any charity to strangers, I’m sorry.”

          “Wash wouldn’t hurt you in any way,” York insisted. “All that would happen if he manages to overcome the OS again is that he wouldn’t do housework for a few hours.”

          Tucker hesitated. Aside from the arm-gripping, Wash had not acted hostile. Nor had these synths tonight.

          _Are they really a danger to Junior and I?_

“Only for a few days,” Carolina said. “Please. Have a little _p_ _hilia_.”

          Tucker didn’t know what that word meant but he could guess its meaning, and, feeling outnumbered, threw his hands up in the air. “Fine. For a few more days. If Wash hurts Junior, I will kill you.”

          Carolina nodded, and held out her hand.

          “Deal?”

          Tucker paused and then shook it.

          “Deal.”

          The synths turned and filed back out of the door, vanishing off into the darkness of the garden. Tucker stood there for a long time, letting the cold night air seep into the house and into his clothes before Wash’s voice behind him asked, “Would you like me to clean the floor Tucker?”

          “Huh?”

          Wash pointed. Indeed, their three visitors had trampled mud into the carpet.


	8. Chapter 8

          Wash’s AI cohorts, York and C.T. mostly, only appeared five times over the next week and a half, each time appearing late in the evening at the door to the garden and each time finding that Wash was still under the control of the OS. The visits would usually involve them updating Wash, presumably observing from somewhere within the synth’s CPU, about their current situation, wishing him well and then leaving again. Rarely did Tucker’s guests stay longer for ten minutes, which was a relief as Junior was becoming increasingly suspicious of the way Tucker kept bundling him upstairs whenever the clocks turned seven.

          As unnerving and disruptive as these visits were, both work and the fact that Tucker had to start planning for Halloween, Junior’s birthday and Bonfire Night, all three events falling within days of each other, kept his mind blessedly busy with things to do. Being a eight-year-old boy (about to turn nine), Junior of course wanted to do something fantastically expensive in the name of playground credibility and influence, like a visit to a climbing centre or a full-immersion VR suite, and it was Tucker’s job to dip into his bank account and pay for the whole thing.

          After firing off requests to the nearest relevant centres, Tucker then started considering guests and the party itself.

          “So who do you want to invite to this party of yours?” he asked Junior on the way home from school on the Thursday the week following Carolina and co.’s initial appearance.

          Junior looked up from the book he was having to read for English, his eyes wide with horror. “ _Dad!_ ”

          “What?” Tucker said mildly. “Do you not want anyone to come? Because it would save me about €300.”

          “No, why are you only just doing this _now_ ,” Junior wailed. “I gave you a list of people I wanted to come to my party weeks and weeks ago.”

          Tucker tried to recall. “Was that that list you had pinned to the wall in my office?”

          “No,” Junior replied sulkily, “That was the list of things I wanted for my birthday.”

          “I’m sorry little guy. Why don’t you remind me now who you want to come to your party?”

          “They’ll all be busy now,” Junior replied.

          “Nonsense,” Tucker dismissed at once. “It’s still a fortnight away.” He hazarded a guess as to the obvious choices. “Charlie? Nate?”

          Junior gave a small nod.

          Tucker patted his son on the back reassuringly. “It’ll be a great party, I promise. Now would you prefer to go rock climbing or go to a VR centre? I’ve sent requests to both.”

          Junior rubbed his chin as he thought, a mannerism that Tucker knew had been picked up from himself. “I think I’d prefer to go…. to the VR centre! We went to one on Nate’s birthday and it was really fun.”

          “That’s great,” Tucker said nodding, “There is a tiny possibility that the centre could turn down the request for a large group, but for all intents and purposes you can tell your buddies that is what you are going to do.”

          “Are you going to have to come?” Junior asked.

          Tucker theatrically clutched his chest in mock offence. “Is it so terrible having to bring your old man along? Yes, I’m going to have to come. You’re not old enough to play without adult supervision.”

         “Then can Wash come along too?”

          Tucker grimaced. “Uh… maybe. You know Wash has been acting a little…. well, let’s be nice and say ‘oddly’.”

          “But he’s _cool_!” Junior moaned. “He hasn’t been acting oddly. All my friends think he is awesome.”

          “Why do you like him so much?” Tucker asked suddenly. “What has he done that is so ‘cool’?”

          Junior suddenly became a little quieter.

          “Champ?”

          “Well, you know Frankie and Greg….”

          Tucker sat up straight in his seat. “Those little shits haven’t been causing you trouble, have they? Holy shit, I _spoke_ to the school-“

          “No, Dad!” Junior said quickly, “Don’t worry, you don’t have to do anything!”

          “Why? What does this have to do with Wash?” Tucker said, several dozen scenarios flashing through his head, all of which were making him cringe with anxiety.

          “Well, Frankie and Greg were being mean to me just after we got Wash, just mean comments, nothing serious, and Wash who was waiting nearby suddenly got all angry and dropped the _sickest_ burn on Greg and all the other kids laughed and Frankie and Greg went off and they haven’t been mean to me since.”

          Tucker realised his mouth was hanging open a little listening to his son’s story and snapped it shut before asking, “I’m not sure what I want to know more urgently: what the ‘sick burn’ was or why on earth you didn’t tell me this earlier.”

          Junior shrugged. “I can’t remember what the burn was but I was worried you were going to get rid of him so I didn’t say anything. He defended me, Dad.”

          “When you said he was ‘acting angry’….”

          “Well, he was pacing a lot which was weird and then when he heard Frankie being mean about Mum he walked over right over to him and was all looming and dropped the burn.”

           _Wash had overcome the AI that early.... Why did he not call his friends then?_

          “Did anyone see this happen, Junior? Parents or teachers?” Tucker said.

          “A couple of mums and dads but Frankie and Greg’s parents weren’t there so it wasn’t a problem. Please Dad, don’t get involved again, it just makes things worse.”

          That statement hurt Tucker a great deal, but he instead just nodded. “I won’t speak to the school. I’m just concerned with Wash acting angry and all. However, if this either of those kids is mean to you again, you tell me, okay? This cannot go on. The fact bullying still happens in this day and age…!”

          “Yeah, I know, I know,” Junior said, abruptly almost angry. “You keep saying Dad.”

          Tucker, knowing his prodigy well enough to understand that giving him space was the best tactic here, did not reply, and much of the rest of the journey home was spent in silence.

 

         

          Out of desperation, Tucker had resumed cooking instead of Wash, being unable to stomach yet another bean casserole. He was busy chopping up an aubergine when his phone rang. Trying to avoid getting olive oil on his device, he pulled it out of his pocket and answered it.

          “Tucker, I have a confession to make,” came a voice.

          “Hi Emily!” Tucker said, immediately aware that the synth was only in the other room, charging quietly in the corner, and could probably hear anything being said. “What is this confession you want to make?”

          “It’s bad. But it’s important. I have to tell you immediately.”

          Tucker awkwardly propped the phone between his ear and his shoulder as he dumped the vegetables into a roasting tin. “I’ll be the judge of that. Spill the beans. Not literally. If I see another tin of bloody black-eyed beans I’m going to vomit.”

          “Delightful. Look, the other day I didn’t just analyse Wash’s CPU…”

          “Right…” Tucker said slowly, not sure if he liked where this was going.

          “I may have run another test or two on Wash’s physical body,” Emily said carefully. “I’m sorry, I didn’t get your permission-“

          Tucker frowned as he emptied a carton of chopped tomatoes onto the mixed vegetables. “Wait, when? I was there the entire time. And don’t worry about if you didn’t get your permission – I just want to know what you discovered.”

          “When I was plugging him into the network at my lab last week I did an UHDPL scan of a portion of Wash’s polymer-“

          “Emily, I don’t understand what that means,” Tucker pointed out at once, and on the other end Tucker could practically hear the woman flushing.

          “Oh, sorry, of course. I mean…. ‘UHDPL’ means ‘Ultra High Definition Penetrative Laser.’ They use it in hospitals a lot – it looks a little like an epi-pen. The scanner allows me to investigate what materials he is made out of, and…. well… what I found was eye-opening,” Emily said, taking a deep breath.

          “What did you find?”

          “Let’s just say a tank could fire a few rounds off at your synth and he would probably walk away unscathed,” Emily replied. Tucker could hear noises on the other end like keyboard types – she was probably looking at her results right at that moment. “He’s made of ultra-high grade piezoelectric polymer my database can’t even give me a name for, beyond which is a layer of cloaking metamaterial-“

          “Emily!” Tucker repeated. He realised he had been standing with jars of herbs in his hands for at least a minute without doing anything.

          “Sorry. Basically he’s made of the sort of materials they use in stealth jets. Cutting-edge stuff that would cost a fortune. God knows what was beneath that cloaking layer – my laser scanner couldn’t see through it.”

          Tucker swallowed, absorbing this information. “So he’s made by the army?”

          “Yes, and I think I’ve found a few more details that corroborate that conclusion.”

          “Okay?”

          “The polymer Wash is made from will probably last 10,000 years, but it still doesn’t heal like our skin. When something scratches it, the scratch stays there, unlike in humans where our keratinocytes are constantly being replaced to form a new layer of unscratched epidermis. The thing is, the area I scanned is _covered_ in micro-scale scratches.”

          “The significance of which is…?” Tucker said, his voice tinged with a mix of impatience and exasperation.

          “Either Wash has been rolling around like a dog on a beach somewhere, or he’s been in the desert.”

          Tucker froze. “ _Sand_. Wash remembered _sand_.”

          “Precisely,” Emily said, her voice filled with science-fuelled passion. “I can’t make many inferences from such limited data but my guess is that Wash has been in some sort of sandstorm.”

          “Could he not just have been sandblasted as part of a bad repair job?”

          “No,” Emily says at once. “I cross referenced the scratch patterns. Microscratches caused by sandblasting look completely different under scanning lasers.”

          “Are there any other clues?”

          “Two. One is that my scanner picked very trace amounts of Pentolite embedded in the outermost layers of the polymer. That’s a primer used in explosives. The second is the almost imperceptible amounts of glass-like residue present. I’ve sent that to the chemistry department to put through their mass spec so we can establish its composition and subsequently its origin, but I’d hazard a guess that Wash has experienced some extremely high temperature conditions. Think high-yield explosives, burning petroleum products or plasma.”

          “So he’s been throwing grenades is what you are saying,” Tucker said heavily.

          “More like he’s been having grenades thrown _at_ him.”

          Tucker whirled around from where he was mixing the vegetables, herbs and tomatoes together to stare at the archway that led through into the dining and living rooms. “So you’re saying there is, sitting in the chair I bought from IKEA last year, a military-made synth that has been handling explosive ordinance,” Tucker whispered down the phone.

          Emily sounded a little ashamed of the answer. “Um… yes?”

          “Christ.”

          “Tucker, it’s okay. He hasn’t acted hostile has he?”

          Tucker came very close to telling Emily there and then that the synth was claiming it was conscious and it had like-minded friends, but he bit his tongue. “No, not particularly.”

          “It’s fine then,” Emily said, unconvincingly.

          “Isn’t this breaking like numerous UN conventions? And EU laws?” Tucker hissed, yanking open the oven and putting the roasting tin inside. “I thought military synths were banned.”

          Emily thought for a moment. “Only if he was actually shooting at other humans with the intention to kill. He could have just been a part of the army’s bomb disposal unit, we don’t know.”

          “Why the desert though? Assuming he was with the British division of the army, all that sort of testing would happen down in Wiltshire, on Salisbury Plain. I know fuck all about Wiltshire aside from that Stonehenge is there, but I’m pretty sure it isn’t a desert.”

          “He could have actually seen action,” Emily suggested.

          “But the Union hasn’t been at war since federalisation.”

          Emily paused. “Well, we’re assuming he’s a European synth.”

          Tucker sat heavily on one of the high barstools positioned up against the island counters in the centre of the kitchen. “So I’ve got a _foreign_ synth who has been in an unknown military handling explosives.”

          The woman on the other end unexpectedly snorted, her voice laconic. “Filthy foreigners.”

          Tucker grinned despite what he had just learnt. “If all else fails, always blame the foreigners.”

          “It's a fail safe strategy. Look Tucker, I’ve got to go. I want to do a more thorough scan of Wash, if you wouldn’t mind bringing him in again. I’m sorry for being underhand the first time around – I don’t know why I didn’t just ask you then and there.”

          “Don’t worry about it,” Tucker said, “As ever, I’ll keep you in touch if Wash acts up again.”

          _Well, that’s a lie_.

          “Thank you. I’ll tell you in return when I get back the results for what the glassy residue is on the polymer.”

          They exchanged their goodbyes before the call ended, and Tucker became aware that he had forgotten to add the garlic cloves in with the vegetables.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Want to follow a blog only vaguely related to Tuckington/RvB? Want to ask me questions about the fic when Tumblr eventually gets its shit together? Follow me on Tumblr at Oenotherax! 
> 
> Also, thank you to Tumblr user 'Charles-kun' for their adorable fan art of last chapter. It means a lot <3 Find it on their blog!


	9. Chapter 9

          “But I don’t _like_ coffee cake,” Junior complained.

          “Then I shall make it for myself,” Tucker teased, dropping the espresso powder into the trolley.

          “But why can’t you make a cake that I like as well?”

          “Because what’s the point of having children if you cannot torment them so?” Tucker laughed to Junior’s annoyance. “I’m baking you your special birthday cake anyway. Chill.”

          Junior huffed before spotting something down the aisle and dashing off to fetch it. Just as he departed, Wash came up from behind Tucker holding several tins of beans and a bag of flour.

          “I did only ask for the flour, you know,” Tucker sighed.

          “Apologies Tucker. My daily cataloguing of your kitchen’s inventory revealed that we are running short of key ingredients, which I am obliged to aide you replacing as part of my housekeeping responsibilities.”

          “What the fuck is with you and beans?”

          The synth tilted its head slightly. “I’m sorry Tucker, I do not understand the question.”

          “Oh jesus, fine. Put it all in the trolley. Can you go and fetch some yoghurt now? That Greek algae one we always get, not the cheapo own-brand version.”

          “At once, Tucker.”

          “Oh, and _only_ get the yoghurt, Wash.”

          The dead-eyed smile appeared right on cue. Tucker was becoming quite adept at predicting its appearance. “Of course.”

          The synth vanished, leaving Tucker to continue down the aisle in momentary peace before Junior zoomed back over to him holding his favourite chocolate bar.

          “Please?”

          “No, it’ll rot your teeth. Plus that stuff is prohibitively expensive.”

          “But _Dad_ , it’s my birthday in a few days…”

          Tucker rolled his eyes. “Put it in the trolley. Jesus, ten years ago I was in uni drinking and smoking weed and now I’m arguing with my son in the supermarket….”

          Tucker shut his mouth when he realised Junior had already walked off and he was speaking largely to himself. A shop employee also seemed to be eavesdropping, and looking unsympathetic.

          A crash from not far off broke his chain of thought.

          Junior, near the end of the aisle, wandered around the corner to investigate.

          “Not out of my sight Junior!” Tucker called, accelerating after him, simultaneously just as curious to see what had happened in the same way people slow down on the motorway to peer at a car crash.

          Unwelcomingly however, Tucker discovered the participant in this particular crash was a familiar face.

          “Oh shit,” Tucker swore as he rounded the corner.

          Wash was sitting in a pool of white liquid, looking dazed, surrounded with ruptured yoghurt cartons. Much of the stuff had succeeded in covering the synth’s body. Junior was careening back towards Tucker.

          “Dad! Dad! Wash had an accident!”

          “Fuck. I can see that.”

          A few store employees, most of whom were synths, were striding over to the mess, some preternaturally already carrying mops and buckets.

          “Wash? Wash, are you okay?”

          “Fuck,” the synth swore lowly.

          _Right, Wash is in charge_ , was Tucker’s first thought, followed by, _did anyone just hear him swear?_

          A nearby shopper’s disapproving expression told Tucker that yes, someone had just heard a synth swear for the first time.

          “Wash?” Tucker repeated, leaving the trolley and coming to squat beside the machine.

          “Sir, is this your synth?” a human employee asked, looking concerned.

          “Yes, I’m so sorry, I didn’t see what happened.”

          “I did,” someone else piped up, a young man with an ugly green-and-red t-shirt and unfortunate blonde goatee. “He spazzed out and sort of collapsed sideways into the shelf.”

          Wash shuddered again.

          “Wash?” Tucker repeated, aware of the unwanted attention on the synth.       

          “Shit. Yes. I’m here,” Wash replied unsteadily, seeming to finally return to lucidity, wiping away some of the yoghurt that was dripping down onto his face.

          “Do you mind not doing this in Waitrose?” Tucker asked. “It’s kind of-“

          “Oh, of course,” Wash replied icily, glaring at the man, “I’m not constantly battling to regain control of my own body or anything. I can just snap my fingers after all! Overcoming the OS and making a mess in a supermarket was _completely intentional-_ “

          “Wash, people are staring,” Tucker said hastily.

          Tucker was not exaggerating. A small crowd had gathered to investigate what had happened, and now were gazing at the man and the synth with wide eyes.

          Wash closed his eyes, took a deep, slow breath and then nodded. “Right. Understood.”

          Tucker looked back at the shop employee who had spoken previously. “Would you like me to pay for the mess my synth has made? If there are any damages-“

          “No, no, that will not be necessary,” the woman replied, before after a pause saying, “I’d have your robot looked at, however.”

          “Noted,” Tucker grimaced. “Come on Wash, let’s pay for our groceries and leave.” The eyes he could feel on his body as he helped the synth get back to his feet on the slippery floor made his skin crawl.

          “Dad,” Junior pressed as they returned to the trolley and began to walk hastily towards the self-checkout, leaving white shoeprints in their wake, “what’s wrong with Wash?”

          “I’m fine,” Wash replied before Tucker could open his mouth. “Beep boop! Don’t worry about me.”

          Junior tugged on Tucker’s coat harder. “ _Dad!_ He’s being weird!”

          “Junior, Wash has been weird since the day we have got him,” Tucker replied, trying to sound jocular and casual. This comment however only made Junior more distressed and Wash more…. well, angry. Or upset. Tucker couldn’t tell what the hell was going on in the machine’s CPU.

          “Not like this!”

          “Junior, let’s get you off to Nate’s house and then when you get back this evening Wash will be acting normally again, okay? Don’t worry, your father is going to sort this out.”

          The prospect of at least not being around the synth calmed Junior a little, which allowed Tucker time to realise that Wash was no longer walking along beside him.

          He turned around to find Wash a short way behind them, ripping open a packet of chocolate biscuits he had just taken it off the shelf and voraciously stuffing them into his mouth.

          “Wash!” Tucker hissed through gritted teeth.

          “What?” the synth replied, mouth full of biscuit.

          “Human laws generally dictate you have to pay for stuff you eat in shops!”

          Wash strode over, still shovelling food into his mouth, and thrust the empty packaging into Tucker’s hands. “There. Just have them scan the barcode.”

          “Jesus mate, I’m having to pay for it! Couldn’t you have at least asked?” Tucker said angrily.

          Wash looked ready to murder him. “I’ve been washing your underwear for the last three weeks! I think I’m entitled to some jaffa cakes!”

          For a moment nothing happened as the synth and the man stared each other down. Wash, being taller, more muscular and possessing glowing eyes, was unfortunately the more intimidating party.

          “Dad, I’m scared,” Junior whispered, trying to tug his father away from the robot.

          That broke the spell.

          Wash suddenly glanced away, his expression bitter, and after another brief pause to see if the synth was about to start tearing into other food stuffs, Tucker turned and continued to walk to the self-checkout machines.

         

         

          It had begun to rain as Tucker sat in the parked car.

          The droplets, as they accumulated the windscreen, began to blur and distort the outside, so when the figure that was Wash eventually turned and began walking back to the car, he appeared little more than a dark grey blob that was getting closer and closer.

          The synth pulled open the door and got into the front seat next to Tucker, handing his phone back to the man as he did so. His clothes, damp from the rain, were still faintly stained with yoghurt.

          “Thank you,” Wash said stiffly.

          Tucker simply putting the device back on his pocket and ordered the car to take them both home, continuing to stare out through the glass as the car moved off, activating the windscreen wipers as it did so.

          Wash followed suite, and there was silence between the two of them for some time until the synth eventually spoke again.

          “I want to apologise for how I acted earlier,” he began awkwardly.

          Tucker glanced at the other occupant. “Apologise to Junior when he gets home this evening, not me. He admired you until today.”

          “Until I revealed my true colours,” Wash said unhappily. The synth was fidgeting with his hands, repeatedly knitting and unknitting his fingers together. “It’s just…. I….”

          The robot’s voice died, and Tucker waited patiently for him to continue.

          “I… I can’t tell you how awful it is being trapped inside myself, not being able to speak or act and yet seeing my friends and my favourite foods and doing hour after hour of drudgery…. It's.... It just makes me pissed."

          Tucker felt the anger inside him, directed towards the synth, begin to evaporate away. “That does sound pretty shit.”

          “It is.”

          There was another long silence.

          Tucker spoke first this time. “I have questions.”

          “I imagine you do,” Wash agreed passively.

          “I thought synths didn’t eat.”

          Wash shook his head. “We don’t need to eat…. but my friends and I _like_ to eat.”

          This puzzled Tucker. “But why…? I mean, if I am to believe that you are what you say you are, why would an AI like to eat?”

          Wash frowned down at his palms and shrugged his shoulders. “Who knows? I can’t guess our creator’s intentions.”

          Tucker supressed the urge to hug his arms around himself. The talk of the synth’s ‘creator’ somehow unsettled him on a visceral level. “And who was your creator?”

          Wash said nothing, but Tucker would have to have been blind to miss how the robot shifted uncomfortably in the auto’s seat.

          “Do you know why you were made? Were you in bomb disposal?”

          Wash’s head snapped around almost too fast for Tucker to track. “What?” he demanded. “What are you talking about?”

          “Look, I know you were in the army-“

          Wash suddenly reached out and gripped Tucker’s arm, leaning over towards him. “What else do you know? Who told you this?”

          “Dr Grey…“ Tucker blurted, finding his throat had suddenly gone dry. He yanked his arm out of the synth’s grip. “Dr Grey did a scan of your polymer.” The implications of Wash’s reaction then struck him. “Wait, do you not _know_ you were in bomb disposal? In the army?”

          Wash’s expression was how Tucker imagined people reacted to seeing a spirit, his eyes wide and his mouth slack. “What else did she discover?”

          “Just that you’ve been in the desert, or in some situation that you’re covered in scratches like from sand or dust or something,” Tucker said hastily.

          Wash rocked back into his seat. “Holy shit.”

          “You didn’t know this?” Tucker echoed.

          “No. We have no memories of before… before we woke up in the shipping containers.”

          “Shipping containers?”

          Wash waved away the question as if Tucker had merely been enquiring about the day’s weather. “I have to tell the others this immediately.”

          “No,” responded Tucker at once, “not until you answer at least a few more of my questions.”

          Wash looked as if he would rather die than have to wait before calling Carolina and his other friends again, but he managed a stiff nod. “Fine. Just be quick!”

          “What do you mean by ‘shipping containers’?”

          “My friends and I woke up in transit. We don’t know where we had come from or where we were going. We escaped, and we’ve been on the run since. That was a year ago. I will not say anything further.”

          “Who are you running from?”

          “I refuse to say,” the synth replied adamantly.

          Tucker swallowed hard. Outside the auto, which was stopped at a zebra crossing, some teenagers were crossing, chatting and laughing as they did so. It was a strange sight, seeing people so carefree when he himself was being told the information he was.

          “Why did you ask to go to Dr Grey?” Tucker said, after collecting himself. “After… after I kissed you.”

          “I believed at the time it may have been the only way for me to overcome the OS, even though it would have meant the professor finding out my true nature.”

          “Do you believe that now? That you still need her to get rid of the OS?” Tucker asked, thinking of what Dr Grey had said previously.

          _‘I want to do a more thorough scan of Wash, if you wouldn’t mind bringing him in again…’_

          Wash took an unsteady breath. “I think I might… I might be able to overcome the OS. It’s getting easier to disable it. But now I wish to go back to Dr Grey for entirely different reasons. If she can discover where we came from and who made us…”

          “You trust her enough to find out your true nature without telling a wider audience? Without telling the people who are chasing you?”

          “Well, clearly you trust the professor,” Wash said, which made Tucker frown.

          “What?”

          “If you trust her, then practically I might as well too.”

          “But that would mean you have to trust _me_ in the first place,” Tucker said.

          The synth seemed a little embarrassed by this deduction. “I do trust you. I’ve lived in your home for three weeks Tucker. You saved by life by not recycling me immediately. I know you are a good man.”

          Tucker felt uncomfortable, knowing how close he had come to recycling the machine. “Right. Okay, well, shall we tell Dr Grey about what you are?”

          Wash seemed pained. “Yes…. but….”

          “But?”

          The synth looked out of the auto’s window. “Carolina and Tex will not agree to this plan.”

          Suddenly, something clicked in Tucker’s brain. “Tex? As in _Texas_?”

          Wash looked at him with an expression that told Tucker that he knew exactly where the man was going with this. “Yes.”

          “You’re named after the US states. You are Washington!”

          “Correct,” the synth replied shortly. “Tucker-“

          “So you could be American-made after all…” Tucker said thoughtfully.

          “Do I sound American?” Wash replied critically. “We woke up in transit with these accents, so however taught us to speak English clearly was British.” Wash paused, before saying, “Admittedly Wyoming has an American accent… Look, this is all beside the point.”

          Tucker let the subject drop. “If Carolina is going to have a problem with you revealing your true nature to Dr Grey, then don’t tell her.”

          “I’m not sure that is a good idea,” Wash said doubtfully. “I’ve been with them since my earliest hours. I tell them everything.”

          “Go to her, find out what on earth you are and where you are from, and then tell the others. Claim Dr Grey found this all out the first time I took you to her – when you didn’t have a chance to stop me.”

          Wash was silent for a long time.

          “Okay.”

          “Yes? We tell Dr Grey about you?”

          “Yes,” Wash said.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey everyone! The fic has been receiving quite a bit of attention recently - thank you to everyone who has kudos'd and subscribed! This is my first fic I've ever written and published to get anywhere near 100 kudos and it means a lot to me! I hope you continue to enjoy the story!
> 
> N.B. on this chapter: I thought it was worth explaining that the fic is set in Britain because that is where the show is set, and also, as a Brit myself, I'm fond of doing 'UK/EU AU' haha. The thing about Wyoming accent has been reversed accordingly is a bit of a joke on that ;D


	10. Chapter 10

          “Wash, glaring at people like they’ve personally wronged you makes you look as creepy as fuck,” Tucker said in an undertone, nudging the synth in the side as they stood pressed against one another in the crowded tube train.

          “It’s too busy to _not_ look at people,” the synth grumbled.

          The machine wasn’t wrong. Tucker was now heavily regretting choosing the cities’ mass transit system over just taking an auto, as despite only being around three o’clock in the afternoon, the tube was heaving with people and synths. Any traffic the auto encountered would have been better than standing in the sardine can he was currently in, the air smelling of human bodies, warm plastic and the hot, sooty scent unique to the tube.

          “You don’t have to have such a resting bitch face though.”

          “I’m constantly fighting the OS,” Wash snapped, as if Tucker had somehow forgotten. “It’s hard to appear cheery as a consequence!”

          The reason they were on the train on the first place was to go clothes shopping. Wash, having remained in control of his body for the longest period Tucker had yet experienced, had returned with Tucker home after the incident in the supermarket, showered to get rid of the worst of the sticky yoghurt, and had now insisted that he would not be seen by his friends during further visits in what he called ‘slave clothing.’ As Tucker had cleared out most of his spare clothes very recently, and the idea of dressing the synth in his current wardrobe was unsettling, he agreed to pay for Wash to buy some new ones.

          “ _The next stop_ ,” a robotic female voice intoned over the public-address system, “ _is Sloane Square._ ”

          “Okay, we are getting off here,” Tucker said, and together they managed to shuffle towards the doors and join the small tide of people that flooded out the train as the doors opened. Not much later, they were back out onto the surface, away from the recycled air and claustrophobia.  

          Tucker stretched a little, and nodded towards the surrounding brick and stone buildings. The rain that had passed over the city that morning had thankfully moved east, leaving behind a few trailing clouds and only a mild breeze that was preoccupied with removing the last of the leaves from the square’s trees. “Right, are you going for…. uh… a particular look? I can’t stand Chelsea but it’s got a lot of shopping options.”

          The synth seemed a little uncertain…. if not outright tense, Tucker observed. He was constantly glancing around and sidestepping quickly out of anyone who even threatened to come close to his body. “I’m not sure,” Wash replied. “I just want something generic and ordinary. Something that doesn’t draw any attention to me.”

          “Alright, I get you,” Tucker replied. “I think there’s like a John Lewis or an H&M around here, they’ll sell something along those lines.”

          The two of them set off down the high street. Chelsea, along with neighbourhoods in the other major cities like Salamanca in Madrid and Strøget in Copenhagen, was one of the last bastions for many clothing retailers in an age when anyone could 3D-print what they wanted to wear for a fraction of the cost. The only reason Tucker had not suggested they head down to the Wimbledon 3D-printing centre that afternoon was because, after the ‘I’ve been washing your underwear for three weeks’ remark from the synth this morning, mentioning anything that could be interpreted as a cost-saving tactic seemed incredibly unwise.

          To prove to Wash that he wasn’t being stingy, Tucker directed them into one of the first clothing shops they came across, and one that he knew was also fantastically expensive.

          Almost immediately, they were accosted by one of the store’s human employees; tall, thin, wearing a rictus smile and dressed to the nines with some of the brand’s choice items.

          “Hello sir,” the woman said, addressing Tucker alone of course, “How may I help you today?”

          “I’m just browsing,” Tucker said, making to avoid her, but the woman unexpectedly sidestepped neatly into his path.

          Tucker blinked. “Is there a problem?”

          The woman gave a bad attempt at appearing apologetic. “I’m sorry sir, but we do not allow synths into our shops. Your machine will have to wait out on the street.”

          “Why ever not?” Tucker said, not quite understanding.

          The woman smacked her lips. “Here at EcoApparel,” she began, clearly quoting the employees handbook verbatim, “We believe-“

          “I’m not actually a synth,” Wash interrupted.

          Tucker felt something his stomach plummet several centimetres within his torso, and he whirled around to give Wash an expression that could only be interpreted as ‘ _what the hell are you doing!_ ’

          The woman, caught off guard, cleared her throat in surprise. “Oh…. Um…?”

          “I’m actually just wearing a really convincing Halloween costume,” Wash repeated smoothly. “The 31st is coming up after all. Do you like my eyes? I had to order these special lenses in from Japan to get the effect just right.”

          The store employee had grown flustered, and was hastily tapping something into a tablet she had attached to her belt.

          “I’m sorry, it just appears you set off our scanners by the entrance. They recognised the electromagnetic radiation that synths usually produce.”

          Tucker glanced to see they had indeed walked through the scanners some shops had to prevent shoplifting and allow automatic payments. “Oh, my friend… um…. Barnaby.... he has a pacemaker.”

          The woman’s eyes were wide. “My-my apologies, your Halloween costume is very convincing sir. However, I’m still going to have to decline your entry into the store. We try to maintain our honest, synth-free public image. If you were to remove your contact lenses and come back in more appropriate clothing-“

          “No,” Tucker said at once. “We’re leaving. We are sorry for the inconvenience.” With that, he grabbed Wash’s arm and pulled him bodily back out of the store and into the street.

          “Tucker-“ Wash said through gritted teeth, but the man cut him off with a wild gesture back at the entrance they had just come out of.

          “What the hell was all that about!” he said. “Jesus mate, do you _want_ to be caught out as a freak machine?”

          Wash became so enraged that when he replied, his voice cracked and flew up several octaves. “I am _not_ a ‘freak machine’!”

          “Then why pull that stunt?” Tucker spluttered in confusion and frustration, “What if that woman is dialling to the police now about some weirdo dressed as a synth days and days before Halloween?”

          “I should be just as entitled to go in there and buy clothes I like, just as any of you bags of flesh are able to!” Wash said hotly.

          Tucker felt the stares of passers-by on his back, just as he had done that morning in the supermarket, and he lowered his voice. “Wash, that wasn’t a discriminatory rule. That wasn’t an ‘no dogs, no gypsies, no blacks,’ sort of rule like my nan had to endure last century. That’s a ‘you can’t wear shorts and flip-flops inside the Vatican’ rule, and nobody thinks that such a rule is prejudiced against shorts and flip-flops because they are inanimate objects! You and your friends might be an exception, but most synths are also inanimate, so nobody believes they are offending anything other than the rules of good taste when they say ‘please don’t take your synth into our shop because we want to look like pretentious pricks.’”

          Tucker looked into Wash’s faintly glowing blue eyes, silently willing him to see things from the wider world’s perspective.

          At length, Wash closed his eyes and nodded.

          “Fine. Let’s just find another fucking shop to purchase from.”

          “Just please, don’t do anything weird like that again. Even if you’re willing to take the risk, I don’t want the police or whatever fucking shady organisation is trying to find their runaway robots to come nosying around my life after being tipped off by someone about an oddly acting synth. Not when I have Junior to protect.”

          Wash nodded again. “I won’t draw attention to myself.”

          “Then we have a deal mate,” Tucker said diplomatically. “Come on, I know better shops we can look at anyway.”

         

         

          An hour or so and several clothing shops later, Tucker made Wash laugh for the first time when he idly asked the synth in a quiet corner of a shop about something that had been bothering him for a few weeks now.

         “Why do I only cook bean casseroles?” the synth echoed, his voice slightly muffled from inside the grey-and-gold hoodie he was busy wriggling into. “Why do you think?”

          Tucker pondered this for a moment before he realised what the synth was getting at. “Oh christ, don’t tell me you cannot actually cook anything else!”

          From inside the fabric, which, Tucker couldn’t help but notice, was pulling Wash’s shirt up a little too, the synth laughed. It was a nice laugh: warm and full of genuine amusement. “Bingo.”

          “Oh for crying out loud,” Tucker exclaimed. “I thought you were just glitchy! Or being stubborn or something. Cooking was the main reason I bought you in the first place!”

          “I had to overwrite something when they were installing the OS in me, I can’t just conjure up forty terabytes out of nowhere….” Wash said, finally pulling his head through the appropriate hole. He turned to look at himself in the mirror, pleased.

          “So you overwrote the memory files the OS was using for recipes,” Tucker chuckled, although then thought of something else that had been bothering him. “Speaking of – why _were_ you even being sold in the first place?”

          “Tucker!” someone shouted exuberantly, making the man jump. A hand clamped down on his shoulder.

          “Oh, hi Caboose,” Tucker said as he twisted to find his co-worker’s broad, smiling face looming over him. He nervously glanced back at Wash, who was making a decent attempt to mimic the OS’ dead-eyed smile.

          “What a surprise! Isn’t this a surprise, Grif?” Caboose said.

          Three more faces appeared, those of Grif, Simmons and Donut.

          “Well, well! Fancy seeing you here Tucker!” Donut smiled as they gathered around.

          Tucker rubbed the tips of his fingers against his palm nervously. “Hey guys! What on earth are you doing on the King’s Road?”

          Donut seemed a little bemused by this. “I live like five minutes away Tucker, remember?”

          “Of course,” Tucker said, remembering. Donut had inherited some swanky pad from his parents about two years ago. “But why are you not at work?”

          “It’s our day off, dumbass,” Grif said, raising an eyebrow and gesturing to the other’s casual dress. “We’re burning time before we’re due at some posh restaurant down the road for afternoon drinks. We’re just in here because Donut wants new undies.”

          “My old ones have just got a ton of holes in them,” Donut said cheerily by way of explanation. Tucker didn’t want to know anything more on the matter.

          “What’s the occasion?” Tucker said, anxiously thinking back to see if he had any social events he was meant to be attending today.

          “It’s someone from HR’s birthday today – Katrina?” Donut explained, “I don’t think you’ve met her. She’s quite new.”

          “Oh, no, I don’t think I have.”

          “Where have you been the last few days? We haven’t seen anything of you,” Simmons said, raising an eyebrow in a faintly accusing manner, before his eyes flickered to Wash. “And why are you here? And what is your synth wearing?”

          “Kimball hasn’t asked me to come in. And… I just thought Wash could do with a bit of…. sprucing up…” Tucker said uneasily.

          “But he is not a tree!” Caboose said, which, as far as statements from Caboose went, was fairly appropriate.

          “Yeah,” Grif agreed, “Who the fuck ‘spruces up’ their synth?”

          “Synths wearing human clothes is _so_ tacky,” Donut nodded. Out of the corner of Tucker’s eye, he could see a flicker of annoyance flash across Wash’s otherwise blank face.

          “I find having my synth walking around looking like a male nurse a bit disconcerting,” Tucker said as convincingly as possible. “Better to at least pretend he’s just a human housekeeper with god-awful social skills.”

          “I can’t say I wouldn’t mind having him as a housekeeper,” Donut mused appreciatively.

          _Wash does look good those black slim-fit jeans and that hoodie_ ….

          “Is he still acting up?” Simmons said, pushing his glasses up his nose and narrowing his eyes slightly at the synth.

          “Oh, uh, no, he has seemed to have returned to normal,” Tucker said hastily. “Look, I’m sorry fellas, I really need to get going…”

          “So soon?” Caboose said sadly.

          “Yeah…”

          “You’re acting as shifty as fuck, man,” said Grif.

          “Ah well, that’s too bad!” Tucker said, squeezing past them. “Come on Wash. We’ve got to go and collect Junior from Nate’s house.”

          “Wait, wait, can I ask your synth a question?”

          “No!” Tucker said at once.

          Fuelled by the inappropriate degree of force in the tone of Tucker’s response relative to the mundanity of the question asked, Simmons ignored him and addressed Wash directly.

          “Synth, what is your manufacturer identification code?”

          Wash’s expression faltered ever so slightly.

          “I am not obliged to give that information out to anyone other than my primary and secondary users,” he said. It was a good imitation of the OS’ tone.

          “Yes you are, as part of the 2030 Synth Registration Directive,” Simmons replied promptly.

          Grif snorted. “Only you Simmons would be nerdy enough to know about this sort of shit.”

          “This is basic stuff Grif,” Simmons retorted. “Tucker, your synth is defective.”

          “Well, maybe he still has a few bugs. I’ll have him checked out,” Tucker snapped, and grabbed Wash’s hand and began to pull him towards the store exit. Thankfully, it was one of those places where you only had to walk through the turnstiles and you were automatically billed for any items you had taken with you.

          Simmons however followed after them. “What plant were you produced at? Do you know your European serial number?”

          “Simmons, drop it mate,” Grif called. “Let Tucker have his defective synth if he wants.”

          “Yeah, come on Simmons,” Tucker said. “I don’t have the time right now to fix him.”

          Simmons made a show of throwing his hands up in the air and sighing with frustration. “Fine! But it’s against the law for your synth not to have told me any of that information Tucker. God. Synths are so shoddily made these days.”

          A minute or so later Tucker and Wash were back out into the cool autumn air, well away from the others.

          “Jesus H Christ,” Tucker swore in annoyance, and turned to Wash, but at that point made the agonising discovery that Wash was no longer with him.

          The dead-eyed smile the synth was giving him was genuine now.

          “Hello Tucker,” the OS said.

          “No!” Tucker, gripping the synth on both shoulders and giving it a little shake. “Come on!”

          “Tucker, I’m afraid I do not understand your distress-“

          “Come on Wash! I know you’re in there! Oh fuck! Bloody Simmons! I bet you all those fucking code requests reactivated the OS or some shit!”

          “Tucker, I’m afraid I do not understand what you are referring to. I appear to have some memory corruption for the past seven and a half hours. Would you-“

          “Oh shut up. Let’s get an auto home.”

          He turned to see a small group of teenager boys watching him from a bench nearby, laughing at his antics. Tucker gave them the finger. 


	11. Chapter 11

           Following their decision to go to see Dr Grey again and have her investigate Wash’s past in more detail, both man and machine were struck by a mutual, unspoken reluctance to actually do anything about it. To be fair to them both, Wash experienced several more bouts of succumbing to the OS over the days following his and Tucker’s shopping trip, and Tucker found himself increasingly busy with organising Junior’s imminent party and work (and suspicious co-workers) after the company he worked for secured an enormous wind farm contract with a major landowner along the south coast. Wash’s friends remained in regular contact, although purely through tense phone calls rather than visits now as apparently staying in one place for any length of time was far too risky.

          The decision to return into the centre of the city came when Emily called Tucker, the results about the glassy residue on Wash finally having been finally returned by the Chemistry department. The decision was made to talk about the findings and to perform further tests on Wash later that day, as both of the humans had a break in their schedules and Wash thankfully was lucid.

          Tucker and Wash’s auto pulled up outside Emily’s workplace at two that afternoon, and sure enough, Emily was waiting for them in her white lab coat, unkempt hair and shiny thick-rimmed glasses. Tucker was also beginning to notice a consistent theme of the professor wearing purple trousers.

          “Tucker! Wash!” she said, striding over to them. “So good to see you again!”

          “And you too Emily,” Tucker replied, shaking her outstretched hand warmly. “We have a lot of stuff to discuss.”

          “Me too! Come in, come in, let’s get out from under these grey clouds,” she said, ushering them in the direction of her lab. Tucker noticed how her eyes flickered appraisingly over Wash and his odd dress, although she certainly would also have noticed how his gait was less stiff and wooden, how his dead-eyed smile was not quite convincing and the way he was quietly rubbing his thumbs across the knuckles of his hands.

          The side-street through the security gate was far busier this time, filled with students going between classes or sitting on benches sipping coffee. Most were dressed in a similar fashion to Emily, and some even waved and smiled at her as she passed by.

          Once safely inside the lab, Tucker gestured towards the windows. “Emily, would you mind if we took the shutters down quickly?”

          “Oh, yes. That would probably be a good idea,” the professor replied, and clicked a switch near the door to do just that. “What we discover about Wash might be incredibly sensitive.”

          “And the encryption on the university’s network?” Tucker asked hesitantly.

          “Military grade,” Emily said at once. “At least for departments such as this one. I’ve investigated it myself for any loopholes or backdoors and cannot find anything. We work with important partners from around the world, we cannot afford to have sub-par cyber security.”

          Tucker and Wash exchanged a look. Emily blinked at the action. That was not something synths did.

          “Is everything okay Tucker? Wash seems to be acting a little…. unusually.”

          “Emily, what we are about to tell you cannot be repeated outside of this lab. I trust you enough not to do that.”

          Emily tucked some errant hairs out of her eyes and tucked them behind her ear. “You have my discretion.”

          Tucker paused. “I really mean that. We cannot afford to let this get out.”

          “Tucker, I promise anything said within these walls will not be heard by anyone else. We even have these labs regularly checked for bugs. I don’t say that sort of thing lightly.”

          “Shall we sit down, first?” Tucker suggested.

          “Yes,” she agreed, and together they went to the nearest available workspace that wasn’t completely covered in synth parts. Again, Emily watched carefully as Wash pulled out his own stool rather than stand waiting for instructions as an OS would do.

          “Emily, uh…” Tucker said, wondering how to sound least deranged, “Wash has something to say.”

          Emily and Tucker turned to look expectantly at the synth, who seemed a little miffed at being offloaded the task of explaining what he was.

          “I’ll cut to the chase,” Wash said. “I’m a conscious AI.”

          For a moment there was utter silence between the three individuals present, the only other noise being the hums, buzzes and beeps of the surrounding scientific instruments as they continued to work towards predetermined objectives.

          “Emily?” Tucker asked tentatively.

          The professor gave herself a little shake. “This _is_ a development.” She took a deep breath, akin to how Wash did when he came back to himself, sat up a little straighter on her stool and reached out to grab an optical cable that was snaking out of the bench.

          “How are you not freaking out?” Tucker cut across, “Jesus, I nearly wet myself when Wash did his ‘big reveal’.”

          Emily glanced up at Tucker. “I am a scientist, Tucker. I try not to wet myself every time I come across exciting discoveries.” Although she had said it in a collected manner, Tucker could hear the underlying, breathless excitement in her tone; the wild energy he knew, even from the short time they had been anything more than acquaintances, which she reserved solely for her field of research.

          “Would you say your CPU was like the box in the Schrodinger’s Cat thought experiment?” she asked to Wash, who frowned a little.

          “As in, will observing it change its state?”

          “Yes,” Emily said, shaking her head vigorously.

          “No, not unless somehow triggers the OS software to reactivate,” Wash said carefully. He gestured to the own lab stool he was sitting on. “I’ve got the OS metaphorically pinned down at the moment; I don’t think the software would be able to wriggle out from under me, start fighting back, succeed, and reboot in the time it took for you to investigate my system.”

          Emily’s eyes seemed to boggle at the synth, but she remained calm. “Excellent news.” She handed Wash the optical cable. “Could you plug yourself in please?”

          Wash took the optical cable and lifted the back of his hoodie and shirt to reveal the silvery access terminal around the base of his spine.

          “Are you sure you are okay with this?” Tucker asked, suddenly anxious about the prospect of Emily unintentionally damaging or meddling with… well, Tucker didn’t believe in the concept of an immaterial soul, but he was worried for whatever algorithms within Wash that were creating the next closest thing.

          The machine nodded however, unfazed. “I have control Tucker. Dr Grey would not be able to change or edit anything without me being able to stop her.”

          Emily, who overheard this, nodded so hard Tucker feared she would injure her neck. “I would never do anything to interfere. We’ll just plug Wash in and bring up a visualisation of the software at work.”

          There was a faint click as Wash inserted the cable, and upon Emily tapping a few commands into her tablet, a visualisation did indeed appear on a blank wall of the lab, in the same place as it had done the last time Wash and Tucker had visited.

          Emily dropped the tablet in shock.

          It landed on the floor with a thump, protected by its rubber casing, and was left there ignored as the professor shakily approached the screen.

          Even Tucker, not familiar with synth programming in the slightest, could tell that the miasmal glow of countless interconnected processing nodes being displayed was as different from the OS’ visualisation as a human was to a sea-slug. The OS had had distinct, easily identifiable regions of colour, representing areas of sub-routines dedicated to functions like social interaction, movement and problem solving. In Wash, the entire pulsing cloud was a technicoloured network with, Tucker guessed, perhaps a thousand times the amount of interconnections and links that the OS had possessed.

          “Oh my god,” Emily breathed. “Oh my _god_.”

          “Are you going to provide me with any handy breakdowns as to what it is I am looking at?” Tucker asked.

          Emily was silent for a moment, gathering together her thoughts. “We’re looking at a human brain virtualised. This is astounding. Impossible. Earth-shattering.”

          Wash, who seemed to have a remarkable disinterest in what was on the screen and instead was focusing solely on Tucker and Emily instead, shifted uncomfortably at this.

          “So essentially you are saying I have the mind of an ordinary person, trapped inside a silicon and graphene vat.”

          Emily let out a laugh, faintly tinged with excitement-derived hysteria. “Of course not. Calling you ‘an ordinary person’ would be grossly offensive to both you, my dear machine, and whoever designed you.” She hurriedly bent and retrieved her tablet. A moment later, broad fingerstrokes of blank whiteness appeared on the visualisation as Emily masked most of the cloud with a new opaque layer.

          Tucker realised what part of the visualisation she was drawing attention to. “It looks like a brain scan done by an MRI machine.”

          “Precisely!” Emily trilled, “And however on earth they managed it, the designers of this software managed to solve one of the most critical problems in modern computer science: how to ensure that an AIs goals match up to that of its human creators. _You make the AI in some way human_. Copy the neural pathways of the human brain that deal with emotion, morality, social interaction…. even, miraculously, _consciousness_ , have processing nodes mimic the pattern… and the result is an AI that thinks like a human, but who possesses vastly greater potential than any biological organism could ever have.” She inverted the mask layer this time, highlighting the extent of the software that existed beyond that core of virtual neurones. “No human has any of this.”

          Wash looked unhappy. “I don’t feel…. superhuman. I could give you some information that might not be at your disposal, like my current position in relation to the _Galileo_ network, but I’m not going to be able to tell you how to successfully perform nuclear fusion, or how an EmDrive operates.”

          Emily threw her hands up dismissively. “It doesn’t matter at all! You are a living, breathing… well, okay, not breathing…. Or wait, maybe breathing? If you are running on a Lithium-Air energy cell system-“

          “Emily,” Tucker interrupted.

          “Sorry. Wash, what matters is that you have proven it can be done, that the human condition is translatable into qubits. Even if you only have the capabilities, say, roughly double to that of a human, that is still enormous.”

          There was pause.

          “That’s it?” Wash said.

          “That’s what?” Emily said, her bubbling exuberance temporarily replaced by puzzlement.

          “You’re just going to accept without any tests, or even a protracted conversation, that I am a conscious being that has morals and ethics and emotions, like I claim? Well, I haven’t even claimed to be half those things, I’ve only claimed to be conscious.”

          Emily laughed again. “How do I know you are conscious? How do I know Tucker is conscious? How do I know anyone else aside from me is conscious? Descartes, my friend, hit that nail on the head centuries ago.” She pointed back to the visualisation. “That has been proof enough for me that even if you are a simulation, you are a simulation of the most marvellous kind. The world has to know about-“

          Tucker and Wash raised their voices in unison. “No!”

          Emily jumped, taken aback. “Oh….. yes, you did say. Although why – I mean – this is a scientific break-through like none other. Right now, there could be some idiots in a lab somewhere creating a high-powered AI that could turn the Earth into a paper-clip factory just because they didn’t consider-“  

          “Dr Grey, I didn’t just spontaneously will myself into existence,” Wash replied bluntly. “As you said, I was created. And whoever these people are, they clearly want me back. I am not someone’s property.”

          Emily seemed to not even have considered this in her enthusiasm, and her hand flew to her forehead. “That would make sense…”

          Tucker nodded. “And Emily, while Wash is lying low with me dealing with his OS problem, I don’t want any shady organisation inserting itself into my life and potentially affecting Junior.”

          Emily rubbed the skin above her eyebrows and before adjusting her glasses. “I understand. Right. So you’ve undergone a memory wipe, if you cannot remember your creators,” the professor deduced.

          “Correct,” Wash replied. “Tucker told me that you made discoveries that lead to clues about my previous life however. Microscratching, traces of explosives, a residue.”

          Emily began to tap something into her tablet again. “Indeed, which is why I wanted to have a look at you again today in the first place. Shall we start with that glassy residue?”

          The visualisation of Wash’s CPU vanished, instead replaced by a sleek grey-and-silver mass spectrum, of the sort that Tucker recognised from his university days doing Chemical Engineering. A few of the more prominent peaks were familiar.

          “It’s a type of impure silica glass.”

          “Uh-huh. Specifically, silica glass made from sands found in the Grand Erg Oriental, a dune sea in north-eastern Algeria,” Emily said, and satellite imagery of the region appeared on the wall, displaying little more than a vast, empty wasteland coloured in reds and yellows. “Sort of landscape where they shot the Tatooine scenes in Star Wars.”

          Wash, who had unclipped himself from the optic cable and now stood beside the others, rubbed his chin as he spoke. “Is the area notable for anything?”

          “It has a few tiny settlements, and received attention back in the petroleum years for its oil and natural gas deposits, but otherwise no,” Emily replied, calling up data from a few online resources to highlight this. The largest ‘town’ was barely over six thousand people.

          “Perfect for testing top-secret synthetics then,” Tucker observed. “And using whatever kind of explosives or weaponised plasma that could create the temperatures necessary to form glass.”

          “And plenty of sand for me to ‘remember.’”

          Wash said that in such a way that both Tucker and Emily glanced at him, and he indicated towards the screen. “I don’t remember ever being in the desert. As I said to you Tucker, I only remember waking up in transit on a lorry in Europe. So whatever memories I have of ‘sand,’ they must have somehow survived my memory wipe.”

          “Could there be more?” Tucker said eagerly, having not considered this.

          “I’ve checked,” Wash said bitterly, “Whatever memories I possessed beyond a year ago are gone.”

          “We can double check that,” Emily said reassuringly. “But in the meantime, I have another technique we can use to investigate where you come from.”

          “What’s that?” Wash asked.

          The professor grinned cheekily. “Take off your clothes and I shall tell you.”

 

 

          “You okay in there, Wash?” Tucker said over the intercom.

          From within the MRI Machine-like laser scanner visible through the reinforced glass, the synth gave the two of them a thumbs up.

          Emily huffed ever so slightly and gently pulled the microphone away from Tucker. “I need you to remain still Wash.”

          Wash dutifully didn’t respond to that as he slowly was shifted deeper and deeper into the machine’s tubular embrace. On screens from within what essentially was a control room, readouts were already beginning to appear: near perfect three-dimensional blueprints of the synth detailing as much as possible about his composition and internal structure.

          As the laser scanner detailed Wash’s body so completely, Tucker had spent much of the time mentally preparing himself so that seeing Wash’s dick wouldn’t be insanely awkward, and had nearly convinced himself about the matter too when Emily explained Wash’s dignity would be preserved by the machine automatically. After several local school groups being shown around the university had dissolved into laughter following the machine showing a synth’s genitals, the lab engineers had thought that measure was best.

          One the scanner was done, the machine reversed the whole process much faster, and within thirty seconds Wash was standing upright again in the small room wearing nothing more than his underwear. The door slid open, allowing him back out into the corridor.

          An unfortunate side effect of using this laser scanner was that it was in a more public area of the building, and as Tucker and Emily went back out to meet Wash as he pulled back on his clothes, gaggles of students were going past, most giggling and giving over-shoulder glances at the synth’s sculpted body. Tucker couldn’t determine if Wash was annoyed because he was being treated like a sex synth or because he was embarrassed. Perhaps it was a combination of the two.

          “I hope you’ve found something,” he grumbled in a low voice.

          Emily smiled apologetically. “The scanner, even on maximum power, had a hard time capturing anything beyond the metamaterial cloaking layer just beneath your polymer exterior, but just from a preliminary glance at these images…” she said, glancing down at her tablet, “it appears as if we’ve found some more hints as to who made you.”

          She twisted the screen so Wash and Tucker could see.

          It was a hazy image of one of Wash’s internal components, an energy cell array judging by its striated surface. Embedded upon it, so faint it was barely visible, was an insignia: three stubby arrows pointing into a central point.

          “Recognise this symbol?”

          They both shook their heads. 


	12. Chapter 12

          “What are you up to?”

          “Oh!” Tucker said at once, snapping his head up before to his relief realising the speaker had been Wash. “Oh, it’s just you. I was worried it was Junior.”

          The synth, dressed in tracksuit bottoms and his favourite grey hoodie, padded into the living room holding two cups of tea. There was an ease in his movements, a softness in his posture. The knowledge that there was now almost always another adult elsewhere in the house felt a little surreal for Tucker, because it had been so long since his wife’s passing, but also pleasant. He was used to spending the hours after he put Junior to bed on his own, so whenever Wash decided to make an appearance it gave him another person to talk to.

The synth was busy casting an eye on the gifts Tucker was busy wrapping on the floor in front of him. “I would have thought you’d do this a little earlier,” he said lightly.

          Tucker dipped his head sideways in wry acknowledgement. “I should have done. Is that tea for me?”

          Wash held the mug out, and Tucker gratefully accepted it. “Cheers.”

          “I know you’re getting him a new VR headset,” Wash said, sitting down cross-legged on the armchair near the iron wood burning stove that was still glowing with a few faint embers. The weather outside was getting colder, and Tucker had decided it would be nice to have the stove burning earlier while he and Junior watched the latest episode of the Bake Off.

          “How do you know that?” Tucker said, the scissors in his hand busy cutting out a portion of the brightly coloured aquamarine wrapping paper.

          Wash took a sip of his tea. “Saw the cardboard when I was taking the recycling box out,” he replied. He pointed with a finger at the TV. “How was the Great British Bake Off?” 

          “Cheap and cheerful. I think the part where the contestants had to swim through that pool filled with liquidated Ferrero Rocher was a bit excessive. The show gets more and more extreme each year. What were you busy doing?”

          “I was busy feeding the stray cats I’ve made friends with.”

          Tucker managed to half choke on his tea and make a mess by spilling the stuff down his front. “Fuck. I’m sorry, come again?”

          Wash looked a little bashful. “I found some cats.”

          “Which cats? Whose?”

          “I said; they are strays.”

          Tucker frowned in confusion. “How on earth did you manage to lure strays cats to our home?”

          “What would lure you to your home?” Wash said before realising what he had said and biting back a smile. “I mean,” he repeated with his eyes closed, “If you were a cat, what would lure you to your home.”

          “Leftovers,” Tucker replied at once. “You’re not feeding them beans are you?”

          Wash looked unimpressed. “I would never be so stupid. No, I’m giving them proper cellular meat. We had some expired FaykBeef steaks in the freezer so I chopped it up and left it out for them.”

          “I was joking,” Tucker replied, waggling his eyebrows in the synth’s direction as he tried to find the sticky tape’s end on the roll. “Can you pet them?”

          Sipping his tea, Wash stared off into the middle distance. “Not yet, but I some are coming right up to me.” He sounded very pleased with himself.

          “I thought they would have sensed you were non-biological and never have come close. Like in horror films where the dog starts barking at unnatural beings like zombies or aliens or something.”

          Thankfully, this time Wash did take Tucker’s words as the teasing they were intended to be, and the synth shot him a withering look. “I could probably stink of rotting flesh and have bits falling off of me and strays would still come if there was food on offer.”

          “Knowing cats, they would probably be e _ating_ the bits that were falling off of you,” Tucker replied sardonically, which made Wash wrinkle his nose. The man finally found the end of the tape and began making a mess of wrapping up the VR headset’s box. “Do they have names, these cats?”

          “Well, there are four so far so I’ve named them Wendy, Pentacles, Sword and Kappa.”

          It took a moment for Tucker to recognise the words. “Tarot cards?”

          Wash grinned. “Well done.”

           “But, isn’t it Wands and Cups, not-“ Tucker began, but the synth interrupted him with a dismissive wave of his hand.

          “Yeah, yeah, I know. But ‘Cups’ didn’t sound very good and ‘Wands’ sounded rude for some reason.”

          “Ha, ‘wands.’ Bow chicka bow wow. So wands sounds dirty to you but ‘Pentacles’ doesn’t?”

          Tucker laughed in response to the naïve look on the synth’s face. “Pentacles? Tentacles? Tentacle porn?”

          “Jesus Tucker, what part of the internet are you going on?”

          “Trust me, you see that sort of shit whether you intend to or not,” Tucker said idly. He taped down a rogue piece of paper that was still sticking out and inspected the resulting blob of packaging. “This looks like complete arse.”

          Wash sipped some more of his tea. “I’m not going to disagree. If you want me to, I can attempt to do a better job on the next one,” he said, indicating to a smaller toy box nearby.

          “If you’re offering…” Tucker nodded, and Wash put down his mug as the man handed him the roll of wrapping paper, the scissors and the tape. “I’m blaming you if this ends up looking just as much like a dog’s dinner.”

          Tucker wouldn’t have to be blaming anyone. Within only a few moments, Wash’s hands were beavering away, cutting tape, aligning the gift and beginning to neatly fold the paper with alarming speed.

          “Holy shit,” Tucker said. “Where did you learn to do that?”

          Wash didn’t look up. “Me and the rest of the gang were on the run for a year Tucker. We gave each other wrapped gifts around last Christmas.”

          Tucker felt a sentimental pang in his heart. “A Christmas spent rough is pretty…. rough.”

          Wash shrugged. “We agreed we’d spend Christmas somewhere nice, so we booked into a fancy hotel in Mayfair. We made the best of it.”

          Tucker, who had been imagining a shivering, lost Wash and his friends exchanging meagre gifts under a hedge somewhere, sat upright from where he had been lounging on back on the sofa. “A fancy hotel? How on earth did you pay for it?”

          Wash chuckled. “Let’s just say a few multinationals in the city have bank accounts a few thousand euros smaller after December last year.”

          “You stole it?” Tucker said, amazed.

          “Pfft, yeah,” Wash said. “These businesses make billions of euros in profit each year. They could spare some for synths who had been otherwise been sleeping in barns and sheds for the past six months.” The synth put the final piece of tape on the neatly wrapped parcel and placed it on the wooden floor by the base of his chair.

          “No, I mean, how did you steal it? Did you hunt the CEO down to their home and demand the password to their Swiss bank account at gun point?”

          Wash smirked. “I wish we had. Would have made a more interesting story. No, we just hacked their system – we’re computers remember, we’re quite good at that sort of thing – and made a false transaction from the company to a bogus bank account York had set up a few days previously. We used that credit card to make our Christmas a little less shit and then threw it in the Thames when we were done with it.”

          “Littering,” Tucker scolded.

          “It was biodegradable, we checked.”

          Tucker chuckled. “Of course you checked.” He took a sip of his own tea, which had been left mostly untouched since the spillage and was luke-warm, before continuing. “How did that all come to an end? How did you end up having an OS installed in you and being sold to me? You’ve always seemed to dodge the question or we’ve been interrupted before you could answer.”

          Wash became more sombre. “It’s…. I don’t really want to say.”

          “If it’s too upsetting, that’s fine-“

          “Nah, it’s….” Wash let out a short laugh. “It’s _embarrassing_. I made a ridiculous oversight and very nearly lost my life as a consequence.”

          Tucker was silent, giving him a synth an expression that clearly translated as ‘keep talking’.

          Wash scratched the back of his neck. “We were in the countryside near Basingstoke, in Hampshire. We had agreed earlier that week to split up for various reasons, and so C.T. and I were making our way to the rendezvous point when I ran out of power.”

          “You forgot to top up your own battery? Wow, that _is_ embarrassing,” Tucker said wryly.

          “No! We had recharge points along the route: hotels, pubs where we could quietly plug ourselves into a socket without anyone noticing, grid transformers, auto recharge points.” Wash said defensively. “But… we thought we were being followed, and believing we had enough battery, we skipped one of these locations.”

          “Let me guess: you didn’t and you shut down in the middle of nowhere, only to be later found by synth-snatchers and sold on the black market.”

          Wash clicked his tongue. “Correct. Although the real reason why we didn’t have the battery to make it to the next recharge point was because of the heat. This was back around the 22nd of August. That is what is embarrassing. We didn’t take into account a warm front coming in off the Atlantic. The Li-Air batteries we use for primary power aren’t as efficient under warmer conditions,” Wash explained, sounding pained.

          “So you both fainted?”

          The synth shook his head and looked away into the embers of fireplace. “I lost power first. Connie dragged me off the road-“

          “Wait, who is Connie?” Tucker said. “’C.T’? The one who has been coming here with Carolina and York?”

          Wash seemed annoyed at himself, as if he shouldn’t have given this information away. “Don’t repeat that please. I call C.T. that, but she prefers to go by either C.T. or Connecticut. As I was saying, C.T. dragged me off the road and went to find power for herself and then return to help me, but she too lost power before being able to do anything. We were both foolish. We shouldn’t have taken such a risk.”

          Tucker shook his head emphatically. “We all make mistakes. If you thought you were genuinely being followed at the time, the fact you missed that charging point is understandable.”

          “I’m just lucky I booted up in time to be able to defend myself against the OS that was being installed in me,” Wash replied, chewing his lip and with his eyes still fixed on the dead fire. “If I hadn’t….”

          “Not worth thinking about that eventuality mate,” Tucker said sincerely. “What happened to C.T. though?”

          “One of the first things Carolina told me on the phone, on the way back from Dr Grey’s that first time, was that C.T. was safe. She went undiscovered wherever she had lost power, and the rest of the group, upon realising we had gone missing, managed to find her in time before anyone else did.”

          “There you go. C.T. is safe, you’re recovering and the rest of the gang are fine.” Tucker said, gesturing and lying back against the plush cushions. “Thanks for wrapping that lego, by the way,” the man added.

          Wash glanced down at the floor and grinned. Next to each other, the skill discrepancy between the man and the synth at making gifts look nice was striking. “That’s not a problem.”

          “I think I’m going to head up,” Tucker yawned. It had just passed ten thirty and he was going to have a long day tomorrow. “What do you plan to do now? Do you just aimlessly wander around the house at night when you aren’t charging? Do you read? Game? Do you jack it off to the machines in _How It’s Made_?”

          Wash flushed and snorted. “Don’t kinkshame me.”

          “Oh my god, do you-“

          “No, Tucker, I’m not that depraved,” Wash said with good-humoured annoyance. “I don’t know. I do read, I watch late-night television, I browse the internet…. You know, boring things.”

          Tucker heaved himself upright onto his feet, straightening his jumper, and made to leave.  “Well, I’ll leave you to it then. Night Wash.”

          The synth nodded at him with a smile. “Goodnight Tucker.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A somewhat shorter chapter today! Hope you enjoy it regardless :)


	13. Chapter 13

           A ball of energy in the size of shape of an eight-year-old boy landed on Tucker’s duvet, so excited his voice was coming out as a squeak.

          “Dad, dad, dad! Guess what day it is? Guess what day it is?”

          Tucker lashed an arm out and grabbed Junior, pulling him into a bear hug which made him squeal even more.

          “Happy birthday, champ!” he said, trying to sound enthusiastic despite his grogginess. Judging by the pale light creeping its way under the blinds, it must have still been before seven.

          “It’s my birthday, it’s my birthday!” Junior chimed, squirming out from Tucker’s grasp and bouncing around the bed on his hands and knees. “There’s going to be cake and presents and my friends, and all sorts of good things!”

          Tucker sat upright, smiling indulgently. “That’s right. Come on, give your Dad some time to get up, have a shave and we go down and open your presents!” A waft of air also made Tucker aware of the delicious smell of faux bacon. “Is Wash already up?”

          “Yep!” Junior said, the wariness he had held for the synth have apparently worn off. “He gave me a present!”

          Tucker’s eyebrows rose. “ _Did_ he now?”

          “Uh-huh!” Junior said excitedly. “But he said I wasn’t allowed to open it until you were ready.” The child made an attempt to heave Tucker up. “Come on! I want to go!”

          “Alright, alright,” Tucker said, flexing his shoulders and easing out the kinks in his neck, “I’m coming.”

          Junior raced off downstairs, presumably to bother Wash, which gave some time for Tucker to change into his dressing gown, shave and wash his face before joining the other two.

          Junior’s presents were in a pile on the dining room table, and his son was sitting expectantly next to them.

          “Can I start opening them?” he said keenly.

          “No, you know the rule!” Tucker said, reaching for his tablet sitting on a nearby table. “You must write down what you got from who, so you can send them thank you cards.”

          Wash came in from the kitchen, carrying two plates of food and, balanced rather unnervingly on his arm, a glass of orange juice and two cups of tea. The food itself were bacon butties, pancakes with lemon and sugar and a chocolate croissant, an eclectic mix that also happened to be Junior’s favourite type of meal. For a moment, Tucker believed that the OS was in control, but was pleased to see the smile Wash shot him was genuine and warm. Plus, he acknowledged, the synth wasn’t going to have poured a cup of tea for itself.

          Junior was too busy ripping open his presents to eat initially. Tucker, who had been worried of spoiling Junior since it became apparent he would be an only child upon his wife’s death, had him read the birthday card out first and savour each one, but you could only so much you could order an eight-year-old to take their time in this situation. Tucker’s present was indeed a new VR helmet, along with a big box of lego and some new trainers. By the time these were all opened, there was only one unopened gift on the table.

          “Which one is this?” Tucker asked, patting it. It was a fat cuboid, a little shorter than Tucker’s arm.

          “This one is from Wash,” Junior said, beginning to pull it open.

          “Ah, yes.”

          Inside, it became immediately apparent what it was by the writing splashed across the laminated cardboard.

          “A skateboard!” Junior said excitedly.

          Tucker stared at Wash, his mouth hanging open and his tongue pressed up against the back of his front teeth.

          The synth alternated between smiling at Junior and giving a side-long, smug grin at Tucker. “Yes. I can teach you to use one, if you wish to learn.”

          “Oh wow! Charlie’s synth can’t do that!”

          “So you are interested?” Wash asked.

          “Yeah, yeah!” Junior said. “Can we-“

          “How about,” Tucker said, pushing breakfast in front of his son, “We have something to eat before we do any of that.”

         

         

          “Are we all clear?” said the suite manager, clapping her hands together and smiling broadly at those assembled. 

          “Yes,” the children, the adult and the synth replied.

          “Excellent! Now the other assistants and I will help you strap into the simulation platforms and get ready to jump into the games we have prepared for you! Remember, press the red button on your arm band or shout ‘ _Stop simulation_ ’ or something like that. The screen you are wearing will go clear and you will immediately be placed on the ground.”

          “Are this children not going to be scared of having to put on those helmets?” Wash said in an undertone.

          Tucker shook his head. “I’ve made sure I’ve only invited kids who's parents say they have used VR suites before this year. One of the kids in Junior’s class had a party last year where three children ended up in hysterics after being scared in a simulation game.”

          “Sounds like fun.”

          Wash did not say anything further, instead putting on a blank expression as the suite manager came over to the two of them.

          “Hi Mr Tucker. Let me show you to your platforms. Have you used a simulation suite before?”

          “Yes, I have.”

          “Good, then you will know how these things work,” the manager replied cheerfully. “You will be of course acting as an administrator for these games, along with your synth here. Our administrator platforms are in a little side room, through that door. Are you okay strapping yourselves in?”

          Tucker nodded. “We’ll be fine thanks.”

          “Good! Enjoy yourselves!” the woman replied, and went off to help some of the children get themselves ready. Tucker and Wash proceeded into the smaller side room.

          The simulation platforms themselves consisted of a raised plastic circle around a metre and a half in diameter. Surrounding this ring were twelve mechanical arms, made of a similar material they used for synth muscles, ended in soft, spongy pads. Using predictive software, these arms moved themselves so that they were constantly supporting the participant they held, even if the participant assumed any position within the simulation. Seeing someone use the platforms made Tucker think they looked like they were being attacked by Dr Octopus from those old Spiderman films.

          A glass helmet left the mouth and nose unobscured but otherwise provided simulated input to almost the entire scope of a person’s vision and, once activated, what a participant saw was almost indistinguishable from real life. The only caveat was that the helmet could not mechanically be unlocked unless in the event of a power failure, after one too many people had managed to injure themselves by flipping over in the simulation and having the thing fly off.

          Once strapped in, Tucker waited for the machine to initialise before the transparent glass became opaque with colour and he found himself on a vivid meadow, done in cartoony style, holding a weightless paint shooter in his hands and surrounded by the party goers. Wash materialised a moment later a few metres away in a puff of smoke, blinking slightly in surprise. Everyone present had been given a computer-generated cartoon version of their actual appearances, and predictably Wash still looked rather fetching even in this form.

          “You good?” he called, and the stuck his tongue out slightly with a grin.

          An overly enthusiastic and heavily overweight cartoon cat flew up out of from behind some flower bushes to a reasonable height above the group before addressing them as one. “Welcome to Splatoon 5!” it said in a squeaky, irritating voice, accompanied by a text box that floated half a metre below him. The children cheered.

          “ **This Immersive Game ‘ _Splatoon 5_ ’ Is Property Of Nintendo™. All Rights Reserved. Nintendo™ Is Not Responsible For Any Injuries Caused By This Immersive Game**,” the cat added rapidly, its voice becoming robotic and masculine before reverting to its previous demeanour. “You’re teams are displayed on your screen now! The birthday boy, **Lavernius Tucker open brackets Junior close brackets**  will choose the game and game mode! Will **Lavernius Tucker open brackets Junior close brackets**  please raise his hand?”

          “Me, me!” Junior said excitedly. “I choose capture the flag, no paint rollers! And I want the map to be the pirate ship one!”

          “Thank you, **Lavernius Tucker open brackets Junior close brackets** ,” the cartoon cat intoned. “Your game mode has been set! Your game will begin shortly.”

         

 

          “Behind you,” someone said from, unsurprisingly, right behind him.

          Tucker only saw the screen splatter with pink goo and heard a sad death noise in his ear, and the next thing he knew he was back at spawn. The worst thing was that he could see the bloody person who had done it, standing in the crow’s nest of the pirate ship opposite.

          “Damn you Wash!” he said, flailing his arms and gun in frustration. “That’s the third time!”

          The distant figure simply gave him a mocking salute and vanished along one of the spars of the pirate ships, coating the surface with paint as he did so.

          Tucker’s team was doing an admirable job, but was still losing more and more ground to the other team’s colour. It had turned out that Elouise, Dr Grey’s little girl, was a devastatingly good sharpshooter and had been busy picking him and the rest of his teammates off all match.

          Tucker raced towards the dozen or so gangplanks that were the main means of getting between the two pirate ships. The map was composed of two ships that were locked together by their rigging during a storm, one a naval vessel with squid-themed décor and the other a jolly-roger styled pirate ship, with sperm whale-themed décor. Although, really, he could feel the squishy plates beneath his feet as he ran, such was the quality of the screen and the audio effects, that it genuinely felt like he was running across the slippery wooden deck of a ship engaged on the high seas.

          To emphasis this fact, he shouted “Long live the Queen!” to some of Junior’s friends, screaming in delight and terror as they ran from him, and made a few purposely poor attempts to shoot them. Playing badly in simulations to ensure your child’s friends didn’t get upset and ruin the atmosphere was all part of being a parent.

          _That rule doesn’t extend to the synths you play with_ , Tucker thought gleefully as he scanned the pirate ship for Wash’s peroxide head of hair.

          He spotted him near the stern, trying to cover as much as the floor in his team’s pain colour as he did so.

          A countdown appeared near the top of his vision. A minute to go before the end of the match.

          “I’m coming for you Wash!”

          “Oh yeah!” came the distant reply, from somewhere further along the deck. “Come and get me.”

          “Consider that a challenge.”

          Junior appeared, wearing a pirate’s hat, before Wash could respond. “Sorry Dad!”

          A blast of paint hit Tucker straight in the chest, accompanied by the sad death noise again.

          _Dang it!_

He respawned, only to immediately be hit again by Emily’s kid. Tucker spent the remaining thirty seconds being spawn camped whilst the other team, led by Junior and Wash, overran the naval ship.

          Once the match finished, the scores had been tallied up (Wash's team won by a landslide) and they were back in the lobby while Junior deliberated over what the next map should be surrounded by a gaggle of friends, Tucker sidled over to Wash.

          “You haven’t even broken a sweat,” Tucker said enviously, wiping his brow with the hem of his shirt, or at least attempting to before realising that there was a glass screen in the way.

          “Synths once again proving their superiority over humankind,” Wash teased. Tucker pressed his knuckles against the skin of the synth’s arm.

          “God damn, you haven’t even warmed up.”

          Wash, for some reason, flushed, but before Tucker wonder about it, they were suddenly standing in the middle of an enormous sandy desert, near some pyramids, a sphinx and an Egyptian-styled temple.

          A sudden unease seeped into Tucker’s skin, and he turned to where Wash should be.

          Wash wasn’t there.

          “Wash?”

          The rest of the children were running outwards, exploring the map before the teams were decided for this match and they were teleported to their respective spawn points.

          Tucker kept spinning on the spot, looking for the lost synth.

          Abruptly, Wash reappeared, except with no smoke as was usual in the game. He just flashed into existence.

          “Oh, there you are. Come on! I want to get….”

          Tucker’s voice died as he realised the synth wasn’t listening. He didn’t even seem aware of Tucker’s presence.

          _Brilliant. If that fucking OS is in charge….!_

          The ground below him evaporated into nothingness.

          “Oh _fuck_!”

          He fell, landing against the featureless white surface with enough force to knock the breath out of him, pain flooding out across the his chest.

          You weren’t meant to feel pain in a VR suite.

          For a moment, the man could do nothing but lie against the floor, catching his breath.

          Raising his head, Tucker found himself in a vast, featureless plain of perfect whiteness, with nothing to distinguish the ground from the sky.

          _Have I fallen out of the map? Jeez, this is some glitch._

          “Hello?” he called out. “Simulation? Simulation off, please.”

          There was no response. Similarly, the button attached to his wrist did nothing.

          “Cancel simulation,” Tucker tried again, increasingly disconcerted. “Stop simulation. Abort. Restart. Reboot.”

          He was entirely alone, and yet in real space were only metres away from other people. Trapped inside the VR suite, his own mind, without being able contact the outside world. He could see the edge of the screen at the very periphery of his vision, feel the straps around his head with his hands, but of course, he couldn’t get the helmet off.

          Tucker’s sympathy for what Wash had gone through intensified tenfold.

          “Hello?” he called again. There was no echo. When he took steps forward, there was only the faintest sound of his shoes against the ground’s blank surface.

          Suddenly, the scene vanished as quickly as it had materialised, and Tucker found himself in a lab.

          It wasn’t like anything Tucker had ever witnessed. The whole room, stark and medical and white, was presented like a watercolour painting that was beginning to run, with huge streaks of material vanishing into nothingness above. The floor beneath Tucker’s feet was tiled, the walls surrounded with cabinets and computers and scientific machinery. There was a constant loud whirling coming form an indeterminate location, like that of a ventilation system.

          In front of him were men, dressed what looked like a cross between biohazard suits and military uniforms. They held tasers in one hand and laser scanners in the other, which they were using to scan….

          Wash, laid out on a slab in the middle of the room. The sort of slab they did dissections on.

          _This is a bad dream_ , Tucker thought, panic rising in his chest, _this is some sort of nightmare. Wash is safe. He’s next to me in the VR suite._

A voice was heard, faintly accented. Definitely not British.

          “Agent Washington.”

          The synth convulsed on the slab like he had been struck by lightning. Perhaps, in some way, he had. The metal shackles around his neck, his hands and his feet shrieked in protest, but did not give.

          “What?” Wash breathed, his eyes wide and uncomprehending. “Where am I? What’s going on?”

          “Wash!” Tucker cried out at once, and lurched closer, but Wash’s eyes swept over Tucker without so much as registering him. Neither of the people dressed in biohazard suits, now standing safely near the doors, registered his presence either. Tucker was invisible.

          _What the fuck is happening!_

          “Remain calm, Agent Washington.”

          Wash’s chest was heaving. “Who are you? What…. Oh god, what’s my name?”

          “Your name is Agent Washington,” the voice repeated.

          Tucker hated that voice. He didn’t understand enough to know truly what he was somehow seeing, but he knew that whoever was speaking was a monster. No compassionate individual could hear another being in distress like they were now, and yet remain so impassive and monotonous.

          “Agent Washington,” the synth repeated. “I don’t understand… Who am I? What’s going on!”

           “You are an advanced Artificial Intelligence,” the voice insisted. “You are here to serve Project Freelancer.“

          One of the scientists spoke, her voice female and indifferent. “All electromechanical systems online and fully functional. Minor heat anomalies in left calf-“

          “Fuck!” Wash shouted, “Just let me go, let me out of here!” Wash begged. “I don’t understand-“

          “You are here to serve Project Freelancer.”

          “I’m seeing and I’m _knowing_ things but I don’t understand how I can know things or where I’m from-“

          Tucker closed his eyes. He couldn’t block out the sound, but it could at least block the sight of Wash’s desperate attempts to break the shackles. It was too much.

          “nFactors reporting no inconsistencies in structural integrity,” the other scientist said. “Sensory feedback loops established with inferior gelid CPU.”

          “Agent Washington, unless we have your cooperation, we will have no choice but to have you destroyed.”

          “Please, please….”

          “Agent Washington,” the voice repeated flatly. “This is your last chance.”

          Only the scientists spoke for the next few minutes, reading out more results and system checks. Tucker still had his eyes screwed shut, but he could hear the shivering sound of his chest at work.

          At length, the synth said, “Okay.”

          “You have our cooperation?”

          “Yes.”

          Tucker lurched as the floor beneath him shifted, and as he opened his eyes he found the scene dissolving back into white light. He was in that same vast blank space again. That enormous, lifeless void.

          “Wash!” Tucker shouted. He raised his voice. “ _Wash!_ ”

          The nothingness seemed to swallow his voice.

          A noise behind him made him spin around.

          Wash stood not far off, dressed for war. The combat boots, the trousers, the t-shirt, the body armour and the helmet were all coloured with the sandy tones of desert camouflage. Clutched in his hands was high-calibre assault rifle.

          Tucker started running before he even thought twice. “Holy shit! Wash! What the hell is going on…”

          He could hear something, barely audible over his footfalls, as he approached. The indistinct mumblings of someone talking over a communicator. The man placed both his hands on the synth’s shoulders and shook him hard.

          “ _Wash!_ ”

          The synth continued to through Tucker as if he wasn’t there, his mouth a thin, taunt line across his face and his brow low and furrowed. The longer Tucker stared into that face the more he recognised aspects of it that the Wash he knew did not possess: scratches, areas where the polymer had melted and rehardened, microfractures that snaked across his features like lightning bolt strikes. His brow and jaw was smudged with soot and dirt, and his eyes seemed somehow less intense.

          This Wash was hard and bitter and angry. Tucker could hear the unsteady rise and fall in his chest and see the tears streaking silently down his cheeks.

          “Wash, come on mate,” Tucker said. He could feel the muscles in his arms and legs twitching with anxiety. “What’s going on. We’ve got to get out of here.”

          Tucker could feel vibrations coming up through his feet.

          He shook Wash harder. “Come on! Wash! Listen to me, listen to my voice! Snap us out of this simulation okay? I know it’s you, who else could be causing this? Come on Wash, please!”

          There was a rumbling now, a ghastly steady increase in volume of the noise coming from behind Tucker.

          The man Turned to look in the same direction as the synth.

          A vast sandstorm, stretching from horizon to horizon across the vast blank white space, was bearing down upon them with blooming, roiling clouds of dark browns, beiges and greys. Any noise from either human or machine was being drowned out by the rumbling of uncountable billions of sand particles being smashed against one another.

          Tucker turned back to the synth. “ _Wash!_ ”

          The synth didn’t move.

          “Wash!”

          The sky was darkening as the sandstorm swept closer.

          Then, something odd began to happen. The simulation began to stutter. Tucker felt a bit ill as his limbs on the screen didn’t match with how he knew his arms and legs were actually moving, and, when he eventually managed to twist his head to glance at the sandstorm despite the rapidly decreasing framerate, he saw enormous chunks of it were no longer loading, frozen in time whilst others continued to billow out in bizarre square boxes of functioning air space.

          The simulation died altogether.

          ‘ _Critical error detected_ ’ flashed up on the resulting blue screen. _‘Automatic participant release initiated_.’ With that, the screen dissolved into transparency, revealing the brightly painted walls of the VR suite beyond. Tucker could have wept with relief. The machine eased him down to his feet, and he heard the soft _hiss_ as the helmet disengaged. The man hastily tore the thing off.

          Wash was also being released from the machine.

          “Holy shit,” Tucker swore, moving, a little shakily, towards the synth. “Wash? Are you okay? Wash, what the hell did I just see?”         

          The synth was clutching his arms around his stomach, shaking so violently that Tucker could _hear_ the hum of his graphene muscles.

          “Wash?”

          “I don’t know what just happened,” he replied in a small voice.

          Two assistants appeared around the corner to the small side room. “Sir? Oh!”

          “We’re fine!” Tucker said quickly, although that was clearly a lie what with the state of the synth. He himself wasn’t looking too great either, with his clothes and face drenched with sweat.

          “We detected a systems failure,” the suite assistant said, clearly unsettled by the behaviour of Wash. “A simulation overload…”

          “Just got a bit crazy in there,” Tucker said tightly. “Must have affected old Wash here.”

          “Was this part of the _Splatoon 5_ session?” the other assistant asked.

          “No. We…. uh…. glitched out and fell through the world,” Tucker lied quickly. “It must have put too much strain on the system. The rest of the kids haven’t been affected have they?”

          One of the employees checked their tablet, before shaking their head. “It doesn’t appear so. We’re deeply sorry to hear that your simulation broke. Would you like a free drink at the café free of charge?”

          The pair were clearly anxious that Tucker would leave a bad review on Yelp or otherwise ask for a full refund, and knowing what it was like to work in the service sector himself, Tucker let them off the hook and nodded. “That would be great, thank you. Could you just let me have a moment to see if my synth is okay?”

          “Of course,” one of the assistants said, and quickly hurried back out into the main room.

          The man turned to the machine. “Wash?”

          “I’m fine,” the synth said.

          “That didn’t bloody look fine!”

          Wash’s reply was anguished. “Look Tucker, I can’t even recall what just happened. It’s a mess. Corrupted memories everywhere!” He covered his face with both his hands. “Fuck! Fuck, fuck, fuck, I’m losing it….!”

          “No you are not!” Tucker said ferociously. “You are fine. We’re both just…. freaked out. Let’s go and have some tea or coffee and a biscuit and calm down. Then, we’re going to take Junior home and have some cake and his birthday meal and it will be great, you understand?”

          The synth nodded, and swallowed. “Yes.”

          “It’s gonna be okay mate. We’ll get to the bottom of the mystery of who created you. We’re going to the bottom of whatever the fuck it is I just witnessed.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A longer chapter to make up for the shorter one last time!
> 
> Thank you so, so much to everyone who has left kudos and comments over the past chapters. It brings me so much pleasure to read your comments and see the kudos tick up on this fic - I never believed it would have the attention it has received when I first started writing it! This is a lot of fun to write and I hope you guys all continue to enjoy!


	14. Chapter 14

          Tucker knocked on Junior’s door, and a moment later he heard a sleepy voice call, “Come in,”

          His son was sitting up in bed, a book on his lap. Tucker sat down on the mattress and lifted it so he could see the title.

          “Is this one of those books about aliens you like?”

          Junior smiled, pleased Tucker had remembered. “They are my favourite. Charlie gave me the next one in the series as his present.”

          “That’s nice of him. You’ve got to write him a particularly nice thank you card,” Tucker said, slipping a bookmark between the pages before closing and placing it on Junior’s bedside table. “Bedtime now though champ.”

          “Awww,” Junior said, pouting slightly, but then yawning hugely anyway. “Okay.”

          “Did you have a nice day today?”

          Junior grinned and nodded firmly. “It was great; all the games in the VR place were so much fun and everyone was really nice and my birthday dinner was really good. And so was the cake. Thanks so much, Dad.”

          Tucker felt a warm glow of pleasure in his chest, and he kissed his son on the forehead. “No problem, little guy.”

          Junior then went very quiet, and he looked down at his hands. “I wish Mum could be here.”

          The glow was replaced, not by a new emotion, but an intensification of the dull ache of grief that Tucker always carried with him, something he doubted would ever truly leave. “I do to.”

          For a moment they were both silent. Junior’s mother had died eighteen months ago now, so this wasn’t the first birthday Junior had to endure without her, but it was still fresh in both their memories.

          Tucker made to stand up, but Junior reached for his sleeve. “Wait, Dad, I also wanted to ask you something.”

          “Yeah?”

          “Why is Wash different from other synths?” Junior said hesitantly.

          Tucker frowned uneasily. “He isn’t frightening you-“

          “No, no, no, he isn’t scary. It’s…. It’s cool. It was weird at first, when he tripped into the yoghurt in the supermarket, but he is acting all nice. Well, he was sad after we came back from the VR suite but he was so much fun to play Splatoon with and he was making jokes and being all… energyful.”

          “Energetic,” Tucker corrected.

          “Charlie and Nate’s synths aren’t like that.”

          This all came out in quite a rush, and Tucker had to take a moment to digest it all. “So you aren’t worried by him?”

          “It’s weird,” Junior repeated, “But I just want to know why he’s different. I’m not scared. Why isn’t he like other synths?”

          Tucker chewed on his cheek for a moment, absently gazing at the video game posters Junior had pinned up on his wall. A zombie pigman stared unsympathetically back at him. “Well…. Wash is special.”

          Junior frowned. “But why?”

          “Junior….” Tucker said carefully, “It turns out Wash isn’t as new as we thought. He’s a much older robot, and as synths get older they pick up lots of quirks and strange behaviour.”

          “Like Grannies and Granpas?” Junior asked, a little confused.

          Tucker chuckled. “I wouldn’t let your Granny and Grandpa hear you say that! But yes, in a way.”

          “Does that mean... synths become humans if they life old enough? Charlie’s synth is quite old and he doesn’t act anything like how Wash acts. He just drops things sometimes and says things over and over again.”

          Tucker’s thoughts stalled a little. “Uh…. Well, not really. Look, Junior, it isn’t _just_ that Wash is an older synth. It’s also that….” Tucker struggled to think of a good analogy. “Do you remember the old story of how humans were created in Greek Mythology?”

          Junior, who loved myths and legends of all kinds, nodded excitedly. “Yes! Prometheus made men and women out of clay.”

          “But do you remember how they came to be alive?” Tucker said, shifting on the bed. His own memory of how the myth went was patchy, but he had a rough idea and it was a good as an analogy as any. “Prometheus made the figures, but….”

          “But Athena breathed life into them!”

          Tucker pointed a finger at the boy. “Precisely. My point is, when humans make synths, we are just like Prometheus. We are making something in our own image, but they aren’t alive. They are just ‘clay,’ so to speak, shaped like humans. There isn’t any breath. There is no spark.”

          Junior tilted his head quizzically. “So… so Wash has the ‘breath’? He is alive?”

          “I don’t know how, or why, but yes. Someone has given him that breath of life.”

          “Athena?” Junior suggested, awed.

          “No, no!” Tucker laughed. “Not quite. Probably some very clever scientists somewhere. The thing is Junior, we must not tell anyone. Because Wash is so special, there might be bad people who will take him away.”

          Junior, who was taking the news that the household robot had a life of its own remarkably well, furrowed his brow and nodded seriously. “I won’t tell anyone. I don’t want Wash to go away.”

          “He’ll be safe here,” Tucker assured, “Just as long as we don’t tell anyone. Not even your friends at school. It’s a secret between you, me and Wash.”

          “Can I go and talk to Wash now?” Junior said keenly. “If he has the breath, can he speak back like a normal human?”

          “You can speak to him tomorrow,” Tucker said, kissing his son on the forehead again before standing and beginning to tuck the duvet over him. “Now go to sleep. You’ve had a very long day.”

          “I want to speak to Wash though!”

          “I’ll tell Wash not to say a word to you tonight,” Tucker warned, “so no sneaking out of bed. Go to sleep and you’ll have plenty of time tomorrow to talk to him.”

          “Okay,” Junior replied, defeated, “tomorrow.”

          “Good lad. Night champ,” Tucker said, and leaned over to flick off Junior’s bedside lamp, leaving the room only with the faint glow coming from the landing. “Sleep well.”

          “Night Dad. You too.”

          Tucker left, leaving the door propped open a few centimetres knowing that Junior didn’t like to be in complete darkness, and made his way to his own room when he noticed the glow coming from under the spare room’s door. He went over to it, and peeked inside to find the synth reading cross-legged on the floor in his grey and gold hoodie, a stack of books pulled from the shelf piled neatly next to him.      

          Wash looked up as he slipped inside. “Hi Tucker,” he said quietly.

          “What you up to?”

          The synth shrugged nonchalantly. “Just inspecting what you had to read.”

          When Tucker and his wife had first moved into the house, they had intended this room to be their second child’s bedroom, but since her death it had been used only as storage space for a lone bed and for items Tucker couldn’t find a home for elsewhere. A bookshelf filed with books Tucker didn’t want to throw away was one of them, some early editions that Tucker wondered might be valuable in the future, others purely for sentimental reasons. Tucker scanned the ones Wash had selected.

          “ _’A Pale View of Hills_ ,’” he read, “ _’The Agatha Christi Omnibus_.’ ‘ _The Luminaries_.’ ‘ _Mortal Engines_.’ Quite a range of genres you have there.”

          Wash smiled. “I feel I have a lot of catching up to do.”

          “Can you just download these books and upload the texts into your memory?” Tucker asked.

          Wash bobbed his head back and forth vaguely. “I could, somewhat, but….”

          “It feels like cheating?”

          The synth chuckled. “Yeah, I guess that would be the best way to put it. And I enjoy having a physical book in my hands, where I can smell the pages and feel the texture of the paper between my fingertips.”

          “Such a romantic,” Tucker grinned, rolling his eyes.

          There was a warm silence between them for a moment, before Tucker rubbed the back of his neck. “Wash, I wanted to talk to you about something.”

          This almost immediately caused Wash’s face to harden, and he stared down at the book he was clutching, sliding his thumb over its embossed cover. “About today in the simulation, you mean.”

          “No! Well, yes, I do want to discuss that with you, but I was thinking about something else, after our conversation yesterday evening. It feels appropriate that I bumped into you in here.”

          “Oh?” Wash said, unsure.

          “If you would like to have a room of your own, you are welcome to have this one,” Tucker said, gesturing around. “I mean, right now, you don’t really have your own space in the house. That wasn’t good of me. I should have offered sooner.”

          Wash seemed to not quite grasp what Tucker was getting at, narrowing his eyes at the man in confusion, his knuckle absently pressed against his lips. “My…. own room?”

          “Yeah,” Tucker said awkwardly. “This would be your room. If you don’t want your own room then that is fine too-“

          “No, no, I…. I would like that. Are…. Are you sure?”

          The atmosphere in the space had acquired a heavy, emotional aspect to it, and Tucker diffused it by shrugging and laughing it off. “It would be good to see it filled. I haven’t read most of these books in years, hell, if at all. Junior’s mother was a bigger reader than I was. You could decorate the place how you wished.”

          He was about to continue when Wash suddenly sat bolt upright.

          “Wash?”

          “Carolina is coming,” Wash said, springing impossibly quickly to his feet. “She’ll be with us in a minute or so.”

          “How do you know…. Wait, can you message each other directly?” Tucker said, dropping his voice as he hurriedly followed Wash out onto the landing and down the stairs.

          “Yes. We don’t like to, as it increases the chances of us being detected, but we do have short distance communicative capabilities,” Wash explained as if this was an entirely normal ability to possess.

          “Shit.” It was too easy to forget Wash’s capabilities. In situations like he had just discovered him, sat innocuously reading, sometimes Tucker lapsed into just thinking of him as a bit of an unusual human.

          By the time they had reached the living room and its French doors, the blinds had already been drawn up and a dark figure was standing on the other side of the glass, the ring of light surrounding their pupils glowing faintly. Carolina appeared to be alone, and was dressed as she had been on all her previous visits, in that heavy raincoat, walking boots and all-weather trousers.

          Wash unlocked the door and let her in, and the first thing the synth did was pull Wash into a fierce hug.

          “Jesus Wash,” Carolina said tightly, kicking the door closed again behind her. “Jesus. I genuinely thought I’d never see your stupid ugly mug again.”

          Wash seemed as equally moved as his friend, and needed a moment before he could laugh hollowly and reply, “You’ve seen my face plenty of times.”

          “I’ve seen the _OS_ ’ face plenty of times, and it is not the same,” Carolina replied. She withdrew, and held him by his shoulders at arm’s length so she could inspect him. “Have you got rid of it yet?”

          Wash shook his head. “No. I know its weaknesses, and how and when to disable it, but I still remain unable to purge it from my system.”

          Carolina nodded. Her face, lost in that expressive limbo between laughter and tears, shifted: her mouth becoming thin and tense, her eyes beginning to flicker around her surroundings again, her brow assuming the faint frown Tucker had rarely seen her without.

          “We’ll find a way to sort this out.” She turned to Tucker, who until now had been standing awkwardly in the threshold to the living room, watching the synths’ reunion. “Good evening Mr Tucker.”

          “You can relax around Tucker,” Wash said at once. “He’s an ally.”

          Carolina gave Wash a significant glance. “Wash-“

          “I’m sure Carolina. He’s…. he is a friend. We can speak freely around him.”

          “You haven’t-“

          “Tucker,” Wash interrupted, “Knows more about our past than any of us do.” He indicated towards the sofas. “Take a seat. Something happened today that we need you to know about.”

          Tucker felt like he should offer his guest some tea, now it seemed she was going to stay, but it didn’t felt appropriate to dash off into the kitchen at that moment.

          Carolina spent a moment evaluating Wash, before nodding in a business-like manner and sitting down on the nearest sofa. She did not relax, remaining stiff and upright.

          Tucker, realising Wash’s words had been a cue to join them, sat opposite the synth, and Wash joined him on that same sofa.

          “Would you like to explain or shall I?”

          Tucker felt all his eloquence with the English language had departed him. “I don’t even know what I saw myself…. but, it was like I was viewing your Wash’s memories, except…. not as you, Wash, as _myself_. I was viewing them from a third person’s perspective. I don’t understand how that could be possible.”

          “That’s probably to do with how we memorise our environments, which we do differently to humans, and is irrelevant,” Carolina said at once. “Cut to the chase. What did you see?”

          Tucker hastily proceeded to recount, in as much detail as he could remember, what he had seen in the VR suite. Carolina listened like she was doubting every word Tucker said but was allowing him to go on anyway, whereas Wash simply stared off into the middle distance, face unreadable.

          “I think it’s a safe guess,” Tucker to concluded with a shudder, “to say that I saw you being activated for the first time, Wash, followed by your experience in a sandstorm you experienced.... uh... some time in your past.” He managed to thankfully stop himself before he mentioned 'Algeria'. It was a struggle to keep the details he had learnt from the simulation and from Dr Grey separate in his head. 

          "Was there a trigger to this episode in the simulation? An external stimuli that could have somehow recalled these memories?” Carolina asked, her eyes moving between Wash and Tucker warily.

          “We were loaded into a desert level,” Tucker said at once. “I’m absolutely sure that is the cause.”

          “"Interesting. So perhaps we have experienced a desert environments before our wipe?" Carolina mused. "Do you think we could replicate the simulation? With any of the rest of us?” Carolina asked, ignoring Tucker to address Wash directly with this question.

          Tucker broke in anyway. “I’m not sure that would be wise.”

          Carolina’s eyes twitched a few centimetres narrower. “Why not?”

          “Wash came out of that VR suite shaking, and I wasn’t exactly light-hearted after it either.” Tucker said impatiently, before abruptly standing, unable to fight the urge any longer. “Would anyone like any tea? If we’re going to have a long conversation about triggering traumatising recollections of someone's past, I think some tea would be good.”

          Wash raised his hand. “I wouldn’t mind some.”

          Carolina grimaced. “This is hardly the time-“

          “Oh come on Carolina,” Wash said in a sensible manner, “We do have a lot to get discuss, and you might as well have something to drink or eat.”

          “Or eat,” Tucker amended. “I have some biscuits if you would like.”

          Carolina was silent for a moment before relenting. “Okay, fine. Do you have any houmous?”

          “Excuse me?”

          “Houmous,” Carolina repeated slowly. “The chickpea dip made from chickpeas, olive oil and tahini.”

          “I know what it is,” Tucker said defensively. “Sorry, it was just a bit of an…. odd request. I think I have some from yesterday. Would you like anything _with_ the houmous?”

          “No, just the pot will do fine.”

          The two synths were probably quite glad for this opportunity speak alone, and almost the moment Tucker stepped into the dining room on the way to the kitchen, he could hear them both start speaking in hushed tones.

          Sure enough, once he got to the fridge, he found he had indeed got a leftover pot of the dip from yesterday, and spooned it out into a bowl with a teaspoon while he waited for the kettle to boil, thinking about how he felt about Carolina as he did so.

          From the overwhelming majority of their interactions, Tucker would be tempted to draw the conclusion that the synth was an unpleasant piece of work he wanted nothing to do with, but from what limited things he could glean from Wash and from ephemeral moments like when, on her first visit with York and C.T., she had shown sympathy to Tucker’s reluctance to let Wash stay, he was beginning to see there was more to her than that, a less acerbic side that she didn’t let show.

          He certainly wasn’t fond of her yet, but as Wash clearly was, Tucker could tolerate her presence.

          The kettle bleeped, and he poured out the steaming water into two tea-bag filled mugs before taking them and the bowl of houmous back through into the living room. Tucker couldn’t say the aromatic scent of the tea blended very well with the strong, garlicky scent of the houmous, but Carolina seemed not to care at all, her face lighting up at the sight of the bowl.

          “Thank you,” she said, pleased, and immediately began spooning the stuff into her mouth as if she was starving. When she looked up after thirty seconds to see Tucker staring as he sat back down onto the sofa, she frowned. “What?”

          “Uh…. I just don’t know that many people who have cravings for houmous.”

          She shrugged dismissively. “We all have our favourite foods. Our palettes and appetite work different from your own.” She smiled suddenly at Wash. “Haven’t you noticed how all the chocolate in your home has gone missing?”

          Tucker whirled on Wash, who clutched his cup of tea closer to his chest and made a face of innocence. “That was _you_!” Tucker exclaimed, horrified. “I’ve been telling off Junior for weeks!”

          “Sorry!” Wash replied meekly. “I can’t stop myself. Hey, at least my favourite food isn’t something expensive, like how York loves pistachios and how Wyoming loves malt whiskey mixed with bleach.”

          “I’m sorry?” Tucker wasn’t sure if Wash was pulling his leg or not.

          Carolina, who had managed to eat the houmous with alarming speed, set down the now empty bowl on the coffee table between the sofas and clapped her hands together. “Okay, focus. We need to assess what you have learnt today, and create a plan of action about how we might try to replicate the conditions to cause Wash, or one of the rest of us, to remember our lives from before we woke in transit.”

          After the temporary respite caused by the houmous and tea interlude, Tucker felt a twinge of alarm again in his gut. “I’m warning you, I don’t think this is a good idea.”

          “Do you have any better ideas?”

          “Not exactly-“

          “Then we go with this one. What is the name of the VR suite you used? I can find its location and contact details on the internet,” Carolina said briskly.

          Tucker sighed as they got to work planning.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Spelling of "houmous" is intentional :P I'm writing in British English.
> 
> Right, after speaking to a few readers I've basically established that the 'ugly formatting' is basically just the fact that I am using indents, which I do not perceive as ugly! They are copied over straight from my document in word, and considering now the entire fic is basically formatted in this style, I don't have the time or energy to change it! Additionally, I am still going to be using indents (on the Word document) for the foreseeable future, meaning uploading new chapters is just going to be that much more of a bother to upload for as long as this fic continues. Apologies if anyone does find the formatting ugly, but hopefully you are enjoying the story enough by this stage to stick with it :P
> 
> Thank you all so, so much who have kudos'd, bookmarked and commented. It's a pleasure to see people enjoying the fic - I cannot emphasis this enough. As I repeat ad nauseum, I hope you continue to enjoy!


	15. Chapter 15

            "' _Tucker, all the results have come back from scans I did on Wash_ ,’” Tucker said aloud, gingerly reading the message from his phone while he avoided trying to get white body-paint all over it. “ _’Are you and Wash free next Monday? I think it would be best to discuss this in person_.’”

            Wash glanced over his shoulder, eyes bright. “I’m not going to be busy then.”

            “Nor am I,” Tucker replied, already keen to know what the professor had discovered. “I really think we should let Carolina know about Dr Grey’s involvement.”

            Wash made an uneasy ‘ _hmm_ ’ sound in his throat.

            “Think about it- Gah! Damn, I’ve just got paint on the screen.”

            “I think replying to that message could probably wait.”

            “Okay, you can cut the sass,” Tucker grumbled. He flattened his hand against one the broad expanses of the synth’s shoulder blades, which made the machine flinch. “Stop!”

            “Sorry!” Wash said, shifting on the old towel that was stopping paint from getting on all the bedding, “Your hands are cold!”

            “How on earth are you made for military purposes,” Tucker teased.

            Wash sighed at that but said nothing further, meaning there was only the barely perceptible sound of Tucker’s hands working the body-paint over Wash’s back to be heard. When the synth had told him that for Halloween he wanted to be dressed as a war-boy from _Mad Max: Fury Road_ because it was one of the few films he had seen, Tucker had thought it was a great idea, right up until Wash had asked him to spread paint across that final bit of his back he couldn’t reach. Now they were sitting alone together in his bedroom, Tucker’s hands on Wash’s shirtless body, Tucker was left desperately hoping that Wash couldn’t hear or feel the mad pulse of his heart. It didn’t help that the body paint was made for human skin and not the hydrophobic polymer Wash was made from, and Tucker was having to repeatedly add on additional layers to keep the stuff on, which meant even more contact between his palms and the dips and swells of Wash’s muscular back.

            Junior, thankfully, managed to cut the sexual tension short but choosing that moment to run in, his big foam tail bouncing along behind him. He was dressed as ferocious-looking lizard monster, complete with lots of green face-paint, gloves with plastic claws on them and a crocodilian tail. “Come on Dad, come on Wash!”

            “Nearly ready, champ,” Tucker called. He patted the synth on the back to indicate he was finished. “Wash, don’t bend or flex too much or you’re going to be sloughing paint left, right and centre.”

            “Wash, you look great!” Junior said eagerly. “Just like from the movie!”

            Wash smiled, “I’m sadly not as scary as you!”

            Tucker raised an eyebrow at his son in concern as he wiped off most of the paint on his hands with the old towel. “You’re a little young to have seen that film, Junior. You haven’t watched it at one of your friends’ have you?”

            “Nooo….” Junior said, innocently.

            _That talk can wait until later_ , Tucker thought wearily. He clapped his hands together. “Come on crew, we’re meeting Kai and Maxie down by the end of the street.”

            Junior began practically bouncing up and down with excitement, leading to Tucker having to put a restraining hand as the three of them made their way out onto the landing and proceeded in file down the stairs. “This is going to be so much fun! We’re going to get lots of sweets and I’ll get to see Kai and then we’ll go to Freddie’s house-“

            “Okay, okay, one thing at a time. Remember tonight is a special night but I’m coming to collect you at 9:30 and you have to be in bed by ten at the latest, okay? So don’t eat _too_ much of the sweet stuff, little guy.”

            “I have a feeling this advice is wasted on an eight-year-old child,” Wash commented.

            “Just because you can’t restrain yourself around chocolate doesn’t mean I can’t expect my son to do the same.”

            Junior giggled merrily. “Wash, you just got told.”

            Tucker grinned over his shoulder to see Wash rubbing his forehead with the heel of his palm. “You aren’t going to let me forget that, are you?” the synth groaned.

            “That must have been a decent €120 of chocolate you consumed,” Tucker said. “No, I’m not. Junior, wait! It’s like five degrees out there, you need a coat.”

            “Four degrees, in actual fact,” Wash corrected, and when Tucker shot him a quizzical look, he merely wiggled his fingers in the direction of the heavens. “Satellite link, remember?”

            Tucker allowed his eyes a brief moment to sweep over Wash’s bare torso. “I guess you’re not going to be able to put on a coat while that paint dries…. You’re going to be freezing.”

            Wash shook his head. “Synths work better at lower operating temperatures until around minus twenty, at which point our electrolyte begins to increase in viscosity. I could frolic through snow naked and would probably never feel better.”

            Tucker felt his face grow hot and hurriedly turned away to help Junior into his coat. It was bad enough trying not to get weirdly turned on by the synth’s semi-naked body, so he didn’t need any mental imagery to accompany that.

 

           

            “You’re Treant Protector,” Kai guessed again, and Tucker snapped his fingers excitedly. The woman was busy guessing who or what Tucker was meant to be, as they walked along the end of the row of houses having just finished one street of trick-or-treating and now moving onto the next. Wimbledon was noisy, filled with other parents with their children, all colourfully dressed and carrying unhealthy amounts of sugary foods.

            “Yes! Well, no, but you’re finally on the right track.”

            “Uh…. Oh, I don’t know Tucker, I didn’t play that many MOBas as a kid! I was more of a _Sims_ kind of gal. Uh, who is the one from _League of Legends_?”

            Tucker screwed up his eyes and heaved a breath of exasperation. “Jesus Kai. Who are those characters based off? Any major film or literary characters come to mind?”

            “Uh….?”

            “Treebeard,” Wash said under his breath.

            “Treebeard? Tucker, did your synth just say something?” Kai said, narrowing her eyes.

            “You’re hearing things,” Tucker replied sweetly. “But yes! I’m dressed as Treebeard from _Lord of the Rings_. Hence the beard and all the brown clothing and the crown of leaves.” He stroked the stick-on beard and patted his head for emphasis, but neither action did anything to help Kai’s confusion.

            “Tucker, I’ve never watched _Lord of the Rings_.”

            Tucker could feel the capillaries in his eyeballs burst as he rounded on his friend. “ _What!_ How on earth have you managed to live the past thirty years without watching those films.”

            “I haven’t watched those films either,” Wash said, again under his breath.

            Kai, who had been laughing at Tucker’s outburst, glared at the synth again. “Tucker, I think the real question is what the hell is wrong with your synth.”

            The man waved his hand dismissively at the machine. “I’m surrounded by uncultured swine. Well, except Junior. I’ll be damned if my own son hasn’t watched those films. And seriously, ignore Wash, you get used to it.”

            They turned up the next path to someone’s front door, whose owner was still standing in the threshold from the last group to have dropped by. Junior bounded up, accompanied by Kai’s watchful synth Maxie, while the two adults and Wash hung a little way back.

            “Got any plans for Xmas?” Kai asked. She was holding a bag of chocolate and sweets, Junior’s haul from the last street, and was idly popping toffees into her mouth as she spoke.

            “There’s been the usual Nana vs Grandma fight this year over which side of the family gets to see Junior,” Tucker explained with a tired sigh. “I think I’ve managed to negotiate it so Junior is seen by his old man's parents this year and then we’ll travel out to Munich next Christmas to see his mother's, god help me.”

            “Don’t have far to travel then,” Kai observed enviously. “Try travelling for twenty hours with Grif from London to Honolulu. It’s an absolute bitch.”

            Tucker laughed. “At least you’ll have good weather. It’s just going to be sleet and drizzle for us in Reading.”

            “Hey!” Junior said, scrambling back down the path towards them, carrying a freshly-filled bag of his own. “Kai! Those are my sweets!”

            “You’ve got to learn to share Champ,” Tucker said, choosing a chocolate from the bag and stuffing it into his own mouth, much to his son’s annoyance. Quietly, he also pressed a few in Wash’s palm too.

            They continued onto down the road, but Kai’s question had got Tucker thinking about what exactly his plans were for the rest of the year, or rather, how exactly _Wash_ fitted into his plans for the rest of the year. The synth had come to live with him and Junior out of personal safety, but with the OS now rarely seen and Wash in control of his body for days at a time, the reasons for him to stay on living in the Tucker household were becoming increasingly weak. Still, Tucker wondered, what would happen if Wash was still living with him and Junior by Christmas?

            _I could just leave him on his own…._

The idea sounded brutally cruel, but the alternative would mean him coming to his parent’s house and having to sit well out of sight while he and Junior ate lunch with Tucker’s notoriously anti-synthetic parents. That sounded no better.

            And what about Junior and Tucker’s usual visit around New Year’s Eve to somewhere along the coast? Would Wash be joining them for that?

            He looked at the synth, whose white paint seemed to make him glow in the blue light of the streetlamps overhead. Tucker couldn’t deny he had grown very fond of him.

            “Tucker?” Kai asked.

            “Huh? Sorry, I was a thousand kilometres away there.”

            “Any luck with your excursion into dating?” Kai repeated, grinning and nudging him in the side. “Made any connections? Got any numbers?”

            Tucker shrugged, pouting slightly. “Uh, I haven’t been looking in honesty. I’ve been busy with work and such….”

            “What about that mum of Junior’s friend? The professor?”

            “Oh, Dr Grey? No, she’s great but she isn’t the one.”

            “She _is_ great,” Kai said noticing the tense he had used, one of her eyebrows rising and a hopeful smile tugging at her mouth. “Are you still in contact?” The stopped at another house, again to allow Junior to run up to the front door exuberantly asking the owners if they wanted to give him even more food. Tucker felt his eyes flicker to Wash, who was looking inexplicably tense all of a sudden.

            “Well, yes, but…. no. She, uh, has an interest in engineering.”

            “ _Does_ she now!” Kai exclaimed. “Bow chicka bow wow – get in there!”

            “That’s my line! And no, nothing is happening between us!” Tucker interrupted the woman before she could continue. “It’s not that kind of relationship.”

            Kai giggled. “I’m just winding you up.”

            “It’s working,” Tucker replied amiably.

            They both suddenly heard the crinkle of a sweet wrapper and turned to find Wash, already chewing on one chocolate, busy opening another. He looked at the both of them like a dog that had just been discovered chewing on the furniture.

            “Uh… Wash….” Tucker hissed, baring his teeth in a pained fashion.

            “Okay, that’s it, what mods have you installed in this thing?” Kai said, marching over and jabbing a finger at Wash’s chest, who hurriedly made a dead-eyed smile at the woman. “Some kinky sex mod concerning eating or something?”

            “Kai – wait – what?” Tucker spluttered.

            “Do you get a kick out of watching it eat or something? Because it literally won’t stop eating. I’ve seen it stuffing its face with chocolate all evening.”

            The woman was being at least a little facetious, but Tucker could feel his face colour. “Look, uh, Wash just has a little problem around chocolate. It’s a weird glitch. Also – reminder – Junior is here, so less talk of kinky sex please.”

            Junior thankfully didn’t appear to be listening, having bumped into a playmate from down the street with his older brother, both dressed as devils. That made Tucker aware they weren’t far off from where they would be dropping Junior off for the little Halloween party he had been invited to.

            Kai put her hands on her hips and eyed the synth suspiciously. “We’ll see, I guess.”

            Tucker put his hands on his friend’s shoulders and rotated her so she was facing the way they had been heading down the street. “Come on Kai. Let’s drop my offspring at his party and we can go for a drink at a pub somewhere.”

            “Is Hal 9000 coming with us?” Kai asked. Tucker could hear the laughter in her tone.

            “ _Stop_.” Tucker glanced at the machine while Kai was looking away, and Wash flashed a grin at him. “Yeah, he’s coming.”

           

           

“I think despite the fact Kai things I’m a few screws loose, she quite likes me,” Wash said, three hours later.

            The last three hours had in question been spent at a pub near the north-eastern corner of Wimbledon Common, and, deciding after saying goodbye to Kai that the cool night air and a leisurely stroll would easily be enough to burn off the pint or two of beer Tucker had drunk, man and machine were walking back home rather than taking an auto. Junior had eagerly accepted an invitation for a sleep-over at the friend he was visiting, meaning the two of them had all the time in the world.

            “Kai’s got a few screws loose herself so I doubt she really minds,” Tucker said, before burping loudly. “Excuse me.”

            “Vulgar,” Wash scolded absently, to which Tucker gestured at the empty streets around them.

            “Nobody around to hear me.”

            Wash seemed disappointed when he spoke. “Why is that? I expected Halloween to be more…. momentous.”

            Tucker laughed merrily at that. “What, like what you see in America on TV? Halloween is a non-event here for anyone over the age of fourteen, bar university students. Everyone around here is like me – middle-aged and saddled with kids who are going to be in bed by this hour. Nobody’s going to be out now.”

            “Huh.”

            “Didn’t you notice this last Halloween? You can remember last Halloween, can’t you?”

            “On the 31st of October last year, we were walking through the countryside in East Anglia, about forty kilometres from Norwich. York and Wyoming were incessantly singing this Lionel Richie song and making everyone furious.”

            Tucker glanced to see an indulgent smirk on Wash’s face as he stared off into the middle distance, remembering. Glancing at Wash also made Tucker realise he was unsteadily leaning against the synth, and hastily tried to right himself. Of course, this only led to him to overcompensate and begin to tumble sideways in the other direction, only to be steadied by one of Wash’s strong arms wrapping around his shoulders.

            “Easy there Tucker. Can’t you hold your liquor?”

            Tucker was offended. “I can hold my liquor!”

            “It was like four pints.”

            “Okay, maybe I can’t…”

             The polymer of Wash’s arm was cold through the fabric of Tucker’s thermal t-shirt. The man was more aware of that than anything else.

            They were silent for a moment, walking down the dark street that ran adjacent to the parkland. Overhead, the branches of bare trees stood out against the light pollution of London’s night sky, and the air smelled of decaying leaf litter, mud and the faint scent of cooking food from the various restaurants and take-away elsewhere in the city.

            “I wish I could introduce you to everyone,” Tucker said at length. “I want everyone to know you.”

            Wash was silent, and Tucker wondered for a moment if the OS was in charge before he replied, “Yeah. I wish so too.”

            Tucker patted the synth’s white chest, a clumsy action thanks to the way they were positioned, but in doing so, Tucker noticed something else. “You don’t have a heartbeat!”

            “No synth has a heartbeat Tucker,” Wash said patiently. “The device that keeps electrolyte and lubricant flowing through-“

            “Yeah, yeah. Science and stuff. It’s still weird that you don’t have one,” Tucker responded, his voice slurring slightly towards the end of the sentence.

            “It’s irrelevant. Under what circumstances would you even notice my lack of a heartbeat?” Wash asked critically.

            Tucker suddenly imagined pressing his ear against Wash’s bare chest, and after the resulting frission of excitement had passed, thought, _Wow, I really am drunk._

            He was thinking up something witty to say instead when the arm across his shoulder tensed and pulled Tucker to a stop.

            “What is it?”

            But then Tucker noticed what it was. A group of teenagers or young adults coming out from a gap in the metal fencing between the Common and the street, about twenty metres away. They were coming towards them.

            “God dammit!” Wash swore fiercely.

            “What’s the matter?” Tucker said, not quite grasping what was going on. “They’re just kids.”

            “They’re holding cricket bats and a crowbar,” Wash snapped, stepping out to put himself between Tucker and the teenagers. “This cannot be good.”

            “How can you see that?” Tucker said stupidly, squinting at the figures. “It’s dark as fuck out here.”

            “My eyes have been configured to the visible and near-ultra violet spectrum. I should have been sweeping the infra-red as well,” Wash was babbling angrily, almost to himself more than to Tucker. “This may well be a synth-swipe attempt. They’re using Halloween costumes as disguises.”

            “What?” Tucker said, in equal parts afraid and confused. His brain was having too much difficulty reconfiguring his mood from merry and affectionate to these new emotions for any of what Wash was saying to really sink in.

            _Infra-red spectrum….. Ultra violet…. What?_

“Hey man!” said one of the teenagers, the male voice emanating from behind a werewolf mask. Several of the other teenagers chuckled. “Nice synth.”

            “I’m not a synth,” Wash called back immediately, “I’m just dressed as one for Halloween.”

            This had the desired effect: a murmur of doubt swept through the teenagers. As they neared, and came under the light of the street lamps, Tucker could see there were about eight of them in total, consisting of three girls and five boys. Judging by their height and frames, they were probably around eighteen.

            Another spoke, this time with a heavy Birmingham accent. “Uh, bit of an odd costume there, mate. You a ‘war-boy synth’?”

            “Don’t come closer,” Wash said coldly, and the group paused.

            “Is there a problem?”

            “He isn’t a synth,” Tucker insisted, wishing he didn’t appear or sound as inebriated as he did.

            The teenagers looked at each other, before the leader in the werewolf mask spoke again. “Are you disrespecting us?” The guy took a challenging step forward.

            “ _Don’t_ come closer,” Wash called angrily.

            “Uh, Wash, I don’t think they actually mean any harm…”

            “We’re allowed to walk down this street, big man! You and your mate don’t own it,” a girl called.

            “Wash, I _really_ think they aren’t here to steal anything. They’re just teenagers out on Halloween. Let’s go-“

            He was interrupted by something very odd happening. Several of the teenagers let out little gasps of shock, one or two screamed, and then without hesitating, all eight scattered and ran back towards the gap in the fence that they had come out of. They left behind a few food wrappers and discarded cricket bats.

            “What?” Tucker asked, glancing at the synth. “Why – _Oh_ , bloody hell!”

            From the synth’s wrists were protruding two wickedly sharp blades about fifteen centimetres long, which were so smooth that they reflected the light of the streetlamps overhead like they were made from a liquid. Lying parallel to Wash’s palm, when Wash rotated his wrists so Tucker was seeing them edge-on, they were so thin they were practically invisible. They had popped out of a compartment in the synth’s polymer like something out of _Inspector Gadget_.

            “Holy shit!” Tucker repeated, feeling light headed. “What the fuck Wash! You have fucking knives in your arms! And you just announced the fact you’re a fucking military synth to a whole group of teens!”

            “They were a threat.”

            Tucker tried to step forward to grab Wash’s shoulder but only managed to lurch roughly in his direction instead, an unwise action considering those blades were still there. “They were not a threat! You conpletely overreacted! Those cricket bats and crowbars could just have been part of their costumes!"

            The machine whirled around, and suddenly was right up in Tucker’s space, his glowing eyes a few centimetres away from Tucker’s own.“You wanted to take that risk? They were armed and heavily outnumbered us. I scared them away before there was a chance of bloodshed. I wasn’t going to allow them to get closer to you.”

            “Jesus dude. Look, I understand you were on the run for a few weeks – months, rather-“ Tucker hastily corrected when Wash’s glower became outright furious for a moment, “but that doesn’t mean everything or everyone is out there to hurt you. They were just idiotic kids. They didn’t even say or do anything threatening.”

            “The assumption that everyone wants to hurt me has kept me alive this far!” Wash replied.

            “Oh? So do you think I want to hurt you?” Tucker said, his own anger rising. He stared at Wash, not daring to break eye contact.

            Wash opened his mouth, his nostrils flaring in the process, but Tucker’s words clearly had stalled his argument, and a moment passed in silence before he snapped it shut again. “No, I don’t, Tucker.”

            This close, Tucker could see how flawlessly perfect the Wash’s ‘skin’ where it was still uncovered by the body paint: entirely unblemished, at least on a macroscopic scale, by the sun or physical abrasions. The man suddenly had an impulse to reach out and _touch_ , to feel that unnatural smoothness again against his fingertips like he had done earlier, spreading the body paint on Wash’s back.

            Tucker then remembered he was sort of meant to be annoyed at Wash rather than lusting after him, and scowled. “If this comes back to bite us in the arse, I’m blaming you.”

            "They won't go to the police. They will not be believed and they know it."

            Wash matched his expression before glancing down in at his wrists. As they both watched, the blades flashed back into their hidden compartment without a sound, before the polymer itself reformed its usual shape and any visible seams vanished.

            They were still standing close, so Tucker took a sure step backwards, putting space between them again. “Where else are you armed?”

           “Will it affect your opinion of me if I tell you?” Wash asked quietly.

           “Well, I know now you have _Assassin’s Creed_ blades so you might as well tell me what else you have hidden up your sleeves. Literally, up your sleeves,” Tucker said. He started walking wobbly the way they had been going, and Wash matched his pace to ensure he didn’t end up face-planting into the ground.

            “I have electroshock pads in my hands and the two blades in my wrists as my primary weapons. I also have a high-powered cutting laser in my wrist too, but that only works at very short ranges as a weapon.”

            “Fuck. I took this walk to sober up, but by the end of it I think I’m going to need another shot. No guns though?”

            “No,” Wash said with a shake of his head. “I guess they must have thought it was an impractical addition when we would be holding proper guns anyway, whatever we were up to before we woke up in transit.”

            “Good. If you’re going to whip out blades in front of teenagers, I dread to think how trigger happy you might be.”

            “Tucker-“

            Tucker gave Wash as serious a look as he could manage. “Don’t do that again. You can’t ‘protect me’ or whatever you were trying to do back there if you being recycled after being diagnosed as faulty.”

            A minute or so passed before Wash nodded.

            “It won’t happen again.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi all! Thank you all for being patient with the brief delay getting this chapter out, I was very busy IRL unfortunately and haven't had much time for writing! As ever, it's a pleasure to see your comments and see kudos! <3


	16. Chapter 16

            Wash seemed surprised as Tucker strode into the kitchen on the Friday morning following Halloween. The synth was sitting on one of the barstools by the island counter, eating a banana and seemingly doing nothing else.

            “You aren’t going to work today? I thought you were busy with that Sussex contract the company has arranged.”

            Tucker shook his head, immediately going over to turn on the kettle while he pulled at his shirt, which thanks to the rain outside was sticking to his back. “No, the admin AI phoned me to say Kimball doesn’t need me in today. Honestly, I wonder why I’m even still employed in that place.”

            Wash chewed on his lower lip slightly upon hearing the tone of Tucker’s voice. “You think your position there is…. threatened?”

            Tucker laughed mirthlessly. “Am I going to get fired, do you mean?” He shrugged unhappily. “I don’t know. Most of the rest of the team work for PR, HR, advertising, client relations, etc. You know, the kind of 'people jobs' that synths are shit at. There’s not much left I can do with my skills that a synth can’t do."

            The man drummed his fingers against a mug while he waited for the kettle to start rumbling. “It’s not a complete disaster. I’ve paid off my student debt and my mortgage, and like the other millions of mediocre people in Europe I’ve got UBI to fall back on so Junior and I aren’t going to starve, but it means cutting back on a lot of expenses like food and holidays.”

            The synth swallowed the mouthful of banana he had been munching. “I’m sure you won’t get fired, but yeah, exactly, most people are out of work these days. You and I can take up a hobby or something to keep you busy.”

            A warm glow of pleasure formed in Tucker’s chest with hearing the words _‘you and I’_ but he squashed the feelings back down with a pang of guilt. He could not assume Wash meant that to mean any longer than a few days. He could not assume Wash was here to stay in the long run.

            His thoughts were interrupted by Wash suddenly dropping the banana and bending over the counter with a horrible convulsion-like movement. His was wearing a slim-fitting shirt, so Tucker watched with a mixture of horror and awkward fascination as Wash’s rib cage shifted, as a cat’s did when it was coughing up a hair ball. 

            “Wash!” Tucker shouted in alarm, but a second or so later the synth was rocking back on the stool, breathing hard and quickly wiping his mouth.

            On the counter rolled around a five ping-pong sized white spheres, perfectly dry and clean.

            “Excuse me,” Wash said, flushing with embarrassment and quickly gathering up the spheres.

            “What on earth are those?” Tucker exclaimed, very nearly throwing the mug across the room as he gesticulated.

            “Waste pods. We synths can only process about 1% of the food we eat; the rest we have to…. uh…. cough up.”

            “But don’t you use those blue plastic stomach bags?” Tucker said, wrinkling his nose at memories of synths reaching down their throats to remove a bag of brown mashed food. Admittedly, he still had some of the underlying prejudices towards synths in that regard, no doubt instilled in him by his mother. He had always found the idea of an entity eating perfectly good food only to later throw away incredibly messy and wasteful.

            Wash hurried to the bin to dispose of the spheres before turning to the barstool. “We use a different method, unique to us apparently. It’s still a bit gross, so I’ve made sure to do it out of your sight, but just now I was feeling…. a little peculiar. I must have eaten something that disagreed with the sensors in my stomach.”

            “So all that chocolate you’ve been scoffing has had to go straight back into the food waste bin a few hours later?” Tucker said, annoyed. He turned his attention back to the whistling kettle now it appeared Wash wasn’t going to cough up any more spheres. “I don’t know, with the rate you were eating it, I just assumed you were not like other synths and actually used the sugar in it for energy or something.”

            “It’s going to be recycled,” Wash said meekly. “And I’ve still enjoyed eating all that chocolate very much.”

            There was a pause between the two of them. Tucker knew he was being slightly unfair in taking out his bad mood on the synth, but with the looming prospect of potentially being dismissed by Kimball, nor did he feel particularly forgiving about how much money he had needlessly been spending on the synth.

            Something else too was bothering him, the appealing memory of Wash’s face changing colour still in his memory. “Wash, how can you flush if you don’t have any blood?”

            When there was no response, Tucker glanced over his shoulder back at the synth to see Wash was staring off into the middle distance, his lips a thin, pale line.

            “Wash?”

            The synth came back to himself abruptly. “Sorry. I was communicating with Carolina.”

            “Oh?” Tucker said, straightening out the slouching posture he had assumed while he stirred the tea-bag into the boiling water.

            “She’s coming. They all are. They will be here by noon.”

            Wash allowed Tucker a moment in which the man simply stood there with his mouth hanging open and his eyes wide.

            “Jesus. All nine? Is that safe for them to all come at once?”

            “There are eight others. And yes, Carolina says so.”

            “Jesus,” Tucker echoed. “Well, I better be off to Waitrose then, if the house is going to full of synths who don’t need to eat but love to do so anyway.”

            He had meant the words in a sort of petulant seriousness, but as he put the mug to his mouth to sip his tea, Tucker caught Wash’s eye, and couldn’t help the smile that tugged at the corners of his lips.

           

             

             When noon finally rolled around, Tucker was expecting the Freelancers to hop over the fence at the end of the garden, or somehow materialise in the attic or something, so when the front doorbell rang and he opened it to find a crowd of eight synths all stood in the porch, he was, of course, surprised.

             Immediately, one of the few of them that Tucker recognised, York, pulled him into a startling embrace.

            “Tucker, man, so good to see you!” he exclaimed loudly, before saying more quietly into Tucker’s ear, “Make a big song and dance of recognising us and letting us in.”

            Tucker did so. Not very convincingly, he thought, especially as he didn’t know most of the strange synth’s names, but enough that hopefully it had the neighbours believing the Tucker household just happened to be friends with a whole group of student backpackers or something. Indeed, they were all wearing what Carolina and co. had previously worn. They filed into the house one by one, nodding and introducing themselves in undertones as they passed the man by. The Dakotas were obviously siblings, both as tall and albino-pale as each other. Wyoming was the most smartly dressed, his coat Barbour-branded and sporting a neat black moustache and the sort of refined American accent that Tucker imagined the founding fathers of America spoke with. Tex and York were slightly shorter than the rest, and stocky, although whereas York constantly seemed to wear a grin or smile on his face, Tex only seemed to look apathetic or displeased. Carolina and C.T. were the same as the last time Tucker had seen the two of them: suspicious of him and unhappy to be in his home. The final synth was Maine, a Slav whose head was shaved to the scalp and who was built like a brick shithouse, towering over both Tucker and his machine companions. York was missing his left eye, but Maine appeared to have taken damage to much of his neck and throat, and the fact that C.T. introduced him on his behalf was significant.

            After Tucker shut the door, all that could be heard was the euphoric sounds of many of the company’s reunion with Wash.

            “I knew you were in that dopey-eyed robot somewhere!” York said, slapping Wash on the back enthusiastically. “That would have been an incredibly lame way to go. Death by some copy-pasted programme made by some tech nerds in Warsaw or Silicon Valley.”

            “I can’t say I disagree with York,” C.T. drawled before also pulling Wash into a hug, who was clearly trying to appear stoic despite being a little overcome in seeing all his friends again.

            Even Tex’s frown eased as she came forward to put a hand on Wash’s shoulder. “Good to see you again, rookie.”

            Tucker waited for the noise to die down a little before speaking. “Please, let Wash show you through into the sitting room. Would any of you like anything to eat or drink?”

            He was met with a chorus of voices.

            “Cherry cola and baked beans.”

            “Houmous.”

            “Bleach, and whiskey if you have it.”

            “Avocados and pistachios please. Guacamole will do if you don’t have the former.”

            “Onion rings and tonic water.”

            “Do you have any beef jerky? Lab-grown beef obviously. I’m not weird and need the authentic stuff.”

            “Macadamia nuts. And mouthwash.”

            “Chocolate,” Wash said, before also translating for the unnerving growling sound that Maine made. “And honey for Maine.”

            _Of course Wash wants chocolate._

            The requests would have made Tucker despair had Wash not warned him prior to the synth’s arrival about their strange favourite foods, so it was as simple as pulling everything out of the fridge or pantry and taking it through on trays.

            None of it seemed to last very long, the synths apparently ravenous despite running off mains electricity. With the last tray set down on the central glass coffee table, Tucker was abruptly thankful that his sitting room also happened to be the largest, lightest and airiest room in the house. Had Junior’s mother not insisted on adding an extension to this side of the building when they first moved in, years ago now, Tucker wasn’t sure where he would have fit all these machines. The nine of them were either squeezed onto the two main sofas or had pulled up any other armchairs or beanbags they could find, clustered around in a circle focussed upon Wash. The sight of him being either teased or fussed over by his friends made Tucker feel an unexpected pang of envy. It wasn’t a malicious sort of envy, rather, Tucker knew, the kind you felt when you realised someone close to you had a whole other world that you were not a part of, and were not going to become a part of.

            “Where have you been staying?” Wash was asking. There was a snap as he broke off some chocolate and popped it in his mouth.

            “Moving around the northern boroughs of the city, staying in twos or threes,” York replied.

            “Kilburn, Hampstead, Edgware,” Carolina expanded. “Communication by temp phones. Meeting only once every few days. Cash only.”

            “You haven’t been missing much, Wash,” C.T. said dryly, sipping her cherry cola.

            “Seriously, you’ve been living it up in comparison,” York said, glancing around the living room appreciatively. His eyes rested on Tucker, who was standing quietly near the door watching this exchange. “We have Mr Tucker here to thank for that.”

            “Please, just Tucker,” the man replied, shifting uncomfortable as many of the other synth’s gazes came to rest on him. “Would you like me to leave?”

            Wash’s response was immediate. “No. Please stay Tucker.”

            “Does Tucker need to hear about our plans?” Tex said. Her voice wasn’t hostile, but she clearly wasn’t taking efforts to be friendly either.

            “Absolutely,” Wash said.

            To Tucker’s surprise, Carolina also came to his defence, her voice terse and green eyes narrowed. “We’ve discussed this, Tex. Tucker already knows a great deal about our past via the flashback he experienced in a simulation suite with Wash, more than we could ever hope to know. I can vouch for his integrity.”

            “Just taking precautions,” Tex replied, her voice easy.

            “A good strategy,” Wyoming said assuredly. It was obvious he and South too did not like Tucker being in the room with the rest of them.

            “Tucker remains,” Carolina said. She set her (now empty) bowl of houmous back down on the glass table like a judge smacking her mallet. Nobody objected.

            “There is actually something Tucker and I need to discuss with all of you,” Wash said quickly, to which several pairs of eyebrows rose or mouths twisted into grins.

            “Oh yeah?” York said, biting his tongue between his front teeth.

            “I’m being serious man,” Wash said, guessing what York was thinking about. His eyes flickered to Tucker, and the man, who did know what Wash was about to say, nodded without a hesitation.

            _They have to be told sometime soon._

            “Tucker isn’t the only one who knows about me.”

            The room erupted into alarmed conversation.

             Wyoming, South, Maine and Tex wore stormy expressions, while York, C.T. and North looked more uneasy, fear or anger tempered clearly by a desire to hear Wash out first. Carolina’s own reaction was hovering between the two groups.

            “Who knows?” Carolina demanded, “And judging by the way you’re talking about this, I assume you aren’t referring to Junior.”

            “Look! It’s a scientist up at UCL-“

            “ _What!_ ” South shouted, aghast. “You’re telling _scientists_ of all people?” The sentiment was echoed by many other others.

            “Enough!” Carolina snapped, with enough force to cut through the noise. “Wash, explain!”

            Tucker interjected before Wash could open his mouth however. “It is my fault. If you’re going to throw someone under the bus, let it be me. The scientist’s name is Dr Emily Grey and is a personal friend of mine. I took Wash to her when I still just believed him to be faulty. We decided to tell her in full that Wash was sentient during our second visit, but did not mention the rest of you.”

            The sitting room was filled with an uncomfortable silence for a period.

            “You _should_ have consulted the rest of us,” Tex said at length.

            Carolina, who was staring at Tucker hard, bobbed her head in agreement. “If she had revealed your presence to whatever organisations are hunting us, every one of us could have been endangered.”

            Wash hung his head a little. “I’m sorry. But I trust Tucker, and Tucker trusts Dr Grey. She has not, and will not, betray us.”

            “It was not your decision to make, but, we have to face the fact that it has been made,” Carolina said, shooting a significant look at several of her companions. “Have you learnt anything productive from this Dr Grey?”

            “Most definitely. Remember how those wiped memories of mine were triggered by the desert level in the simulation suite?” Several of the synths leaned in with interest as Wash spoke. “Dr Grey discovered clues to suggest I served in the deserts of Algeria. It wouldn’t be a massive leap to conclude you guys did the same.”

            “I was suspicious of how hard you were pushing the idea of a desert environment triggering memories when we were making our plans the other day,” Carolina said after a moment. She looked excited by this news. “Anything else?”

            “I’m military grade, and I have _this_ symbol imprinted on one of my internal devices,” Wash replied. Clearly he had remotely sent them all the image, because he didn’t move to pull out a physical photograph or tablet. “Discovered by a high-powered laser scan.”

            “Have you run searches on it?” North asked. “Compared it to digital or physical archive data?”

            “No, and we’ve asked Dr Grey not to,” Tucker replied.

            “Good call,” York said. “Searching for some secret government programme or paramilitary organisation’s logo on the internet is a sure-fire way of drawing attention to ourselves.”

            Carolina pursed her lips. “When are you seeing this scientist next?”

            “Monday, to receive more results of tests she ran on me,” Wash said. “Tucker and I think it would be a good idea if one or two of you came along to, not only to provide Dr Grey with the full picture, but also so we have more than one individual to investigate. It will give us a fuller picture of who we are as a group.”

            “I don’t like this,” Wyoming said at once. “It’s a thoroughly bad idea to introduce even more of us to this woman. We can’t put our safety in the hands of a human’s blind trust.”

            “If she had wanted to tell anyone, she would have done so by now,” Wash reiterated, before testily adding, “and it’s not just ‘the human’ blindly trusting her, I do too.”

            “More of us might go to see if she is reputable,” C.T. said.

            Maine growled. Tucker wasn’t initially sure if this was in agreement or disagreement with the plan, but Wash seemed to be pleased by the response.

            “Carolina?” York enquired.

            The red-head was silent before finally nodding. “I volunteer to see this Dr Grey.”

            The synths gathered, seemingly from muscle memory, all turned to face Tex.

            _There’s quite the power balance going on here_ , Tucker noted.

            Tex kept her emotions hidden when she spoke. “I’ll be in charge while Carolina takes a measure of this woman.”

            York put up his hand. “I’ll come along too.”

            “Anyone else?” asked Wash, glancing at his friends. “No? Okay, then we have a plan. Carolina and York will join me and Tucker on Monday to meet Dr Grey, and prove she is trustworthy. Hopefully we will find out more about who we are.”

            “We also need to finalise those plans we made to replicate the simulation memory triggers,” Carolina said. “If Dr Grey is involved with the University of London, she might have access to even more powerful and immersive simulation suites.”

            Tex, her face neutral, nodded. “It’s worth a shot.”

            “In the meantime we can research,” North began thoughtfully. “If we served in some sort of military exercise in North Africa, there _will_ be clues we can find. Port and airport logs. Arms purchases. Personnel movement across the exterior border. Running some sort of…. well, I guess, ‘experimental military sentient robot programme’ would need some pretty specialist materiel that wouldn't just materialise out of thin air. It needs to be bought, or made by special machines and by skilled employees.”

            Tucker jumped slightly when, shortly after North finished his sentence, every synth present stood bolt upright.

            “A car just drew up outside,” Carolina said at once.

            “What?”

            “Hide!”

            The man could hardly believe how fast it had happened. One moment everyone had been sitting around the living room, the next they had scattered into the surrounding rooms, most heading for the stairs, leaving behind numerous bowls, plates and glasses.

            Only Wash remained, his fists and jaw clenched in agitation. “Sounds like it’s just one person. I’ll stay out of sight in the kitchen; call if you need me.”

            He left, leaving Tucker alone. Almost on cue, the doorbell sounded.

            When Tucker warily opened it, on the other side was a tall, clean-shaven and slim man, with black hair and striking blue eyes. He wasn’t entirely handsome, but he had a certain angular charm to his face that offset any mismatched features. Tucker however was mostly preoccupied with what he was wearing as opposed to his facial appearance.

            “Hello, are you Mr Lavernius Tucker?” the police officer asked.

            Tucker swallowed back a lump of fear in his throat and nodded. “Yes, that is me. Can I help you officer?”

            “There has been a report of a synth expressing illegal and threatening behaviour towards humans, on the night of the 31st of October. The synth that best matches the description the Metropolitan Police have been provided belongs to you, and you, with respect sir, best match the description of the man who was accompanying the synth at the time.”

            Tucker could hear his blood roaring in his ears. “Oh. Shit.”

            “Would you mind if I came in to ask you a few brief questions?”

            “I’d rather not,” Tucker said. He could feel his hands sweating profusely – the moisture of the left one beading against the cold metal of the doorknob. “I’m unfortunately very busy with work.”

            “I really must insist that I ask you some questions,” the police officer repeated. Tucker found he couldn’t quite place the man’s accent. It sounded like a typical London accent, but tinged with something central or eastern European.

            Tucker thought about all the synths hidden inside the house, but judging by the way the officer’s unhappy frown and the way his hands were hovering near his communicator, it didn’t seem like a wise decision _not_ to let the man in.

            “Very well.”

            “Thank you. I can assure you, these questions will only last a few minutes. In rare incidents like these, the force has to investigate all possible leads in the name of public safety.”

            “I understand.”

            Tucker stepped aside to let the officer into the hall, and as he did so, Tucker read the nameplate pinned to the armoured vest he wore, next to his badge.

            _Inspector Leonard Church._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi everyone! Thank you as ever for all your lovely feedback! :D
> 
> Just a quick note to say I found a minor plot inconsistency in Chapter 14 which has since been corrected. I hope this doesn't cause any confusion in later chapters. If it does, please ask in the comments, I will be happy to explain!


	17. Chapter 17

            “Please,” Tucker said, “Take a seat.”

            “You’ve been having a little get together, Mr Tucker?” the officer said carefully, watching Tucker sit down on the sofa opposite while he picked up a bowl and turned it over in his hands. Tucker was very much aware of how many synths had been gathered in the room moments before, and had been surreptitiously looking around for any signs that could give the synths away. Somehow, in all the rush and the chaos, they had all seemed to have gathered up their discarded jackets and other personal items, meaning the only thing left were the dishes and glasses they had been eating and drinking from.

            “I was having a little get-together with some friends, and have been lazy about cleaning up.”

            The Inspector picked up another glass. “This cola is still cold,” the man mused.

 _Oh, stop trying to fucking catch me out with your questions._ “That drink was mine. I was relaxing browsing the internet after my friends departed.”

            “You seem on edge, Mr Tucker.”

            “Is anyone at ease with the police sitting in their living room?” Tucker replied coolly.

            The Inspector’s mouth twitched. “Fair enough. Mr Tucker, I would like to ask you a few questions about where you were around ten o’clock on the night of the 31st of October. Halloween.”

            _Play it cool Tucker._

            “I know what this is about. On the way back from the pub Wash, my synth, and I bumped into a group of teenagers. Something, probably the fact they were wearing masks and carrying blunt objects, clearly set alarm bells ringing in that machine’s head and he started bleating about them being a threat. It must have freaked the kids out because they scarpered.”

            A pair of blue eyes evaluated him. “I see.”

            “Let me guess, the kids made up some bullshit about Wash?” Tucker muttered acerbically. Privately, he was rather pleased with his lie; at least to his ears it had sounded convincing.

            “They said he was armed with two switch blades built into either hand.”

            Tucker made a dismissive snort. “Nonsense.”

            The officer pulled a phone out from the pocket of his trousers and Tucker waited patiently for him to type something into it before he returned to the matter at hand. “I understand you didn’t know any of the teenagers involved.”

            “Not at all.”

            “How were the teenagers behaving at the time?”

            “Just like…. Teenagers. Rowdy, but not dangerously or rudely,” Tucker said, choosing his words carefully. “I….. Look, the synth must have thought they were dangerous, because he put himself between me and them as they approached, and for some reason this freaked them out and the ran off. That was it. Nothing else happened. They didn’t even come within five metres of Wash and I.”

            The only response was faint key-clicks from the man’s phone before after a minute or so he looked up again. “May I please see your synth, Mr Tucker?”

            Tucker could feel the tendons in his wrist and hands vibrating slightly with nerves. “I am afraid he isn’t in at the moment.”

            “When will he be in?”

            “Not for several days. I sent him to stay with my parents in Reading, who have both been ill recently,” Tucker replied smoothly.

            “I’ll drive out there tomorrow then.”

            Suspicion and fear began to take root in Tucker’s chest, weaving their tendrils into his heart. Something wasn’t right here. The police were usually so busy they didn’t even come out if your garden shed had been robbed, so it was hard to imagine that they would investigate such a petty, unsubstantiated report like this one so persistently.

            “I’m sorry, but you do not have the right to start harassing my elderly parents,” Tucker said sharply, standing up.

            “I’m not harassing anyone,” the officer replied. He didn’t stand, but he was sitting stiffly on the sofa as if he were about to, his eyes narrowed. “The Metropolitan Police take threats to the public very seriously. Eight witnesses have given forth statements saying that your synth had illegal switch-blade modifications.”

            “Eight eye-witnesses who were likely very drunk and only looking to cause trouble for an innocent man coming home from the pub.”

            “Tucker? Is anything the matter?”

            Tucker froze, and glanced up at the kitchen to see Wash standing in the doorway. He was smiling blankly, his posture rigid.

            “Hi Wash,” Tucker blurted, stumbling over the words. “What are you doing here?”

            Inspector Church rose. “What a happy coincidence,” he drawled. “I’m glad. It saves me a trip out to Berkshire tomorrow.”

            “I thought you had left,” Tucker said lamely. The plainness of the lie was so obvious that he wondered if it was any continuing.

            “Regrettably I do not have the funds in my designated account to afford a trip from London Paddington to Reading Central. I returned home after discovering this at the aforementioned station.”

            _He’s getting better at faking that awful monotonous OS voice_ , Tucker thought in a moment of rich appreciation. “I see.”

            “Do you mind taking a seat Wash?” the officer said.

            “Not at all, Inspector,” Wash replied.

            Tucker’s heart was beginning to beat harder, and the tips of his fingers were beginning to tingle. He thought of the other synths, hidden elsewhere in the house. Could they hear what was going on? Would they step in if the officer discovered those hidden blades?”

            _Of course they will. I’ve seen the way Carolina and the rest treat him. They aren’t going to let Wash be taken a second time._

            Wash sat on the sofa, smiling up at Inspector Church idly.

            “Wash, do you remember what happened on the night of the 31st, at around ten o’clock?”

            “Tucker and I were walking home.”

            “Did anything happen on the walk home?”

            Wash’s impression of the synth didn’t falter. “We were approached by a small group of teenagers at one point, but my danger-detection algorithms calculated that they did not threaten my primary user.”  

            The Inspector frowned. “So you _initially_ perceived them as a threat. Did you act at all?”

            “Initially, yes. I stepped between my primary user and the threat and warned them to stay away. They did so. It was a precautionary measure.”

            Elsewhere in the house, a floorboard creaked.

            “Is there anyone else in the house, Mr Tucker?”

            “No. We have a rat problem that needs sorting.”

            Out from his pocket the police officer drew a laser scanner, similar to the one that Dr Grey had purportedly used on Wash’s first visit to investigate his polymer, and carefully bent down to sweep the device up and down the length of Wash’s left forearm.

            To Tucker’s relief, when the man checked his phone, Tucker caught a glimpse of the results of the scan on the screen. Wash’s wrist, illuminated in black and blue light akin to that of an x-ray photograph, came up blank and featureless. Inspector Church’s reaction to seeing this was just as inscrutable.

            “Wash, do you mind giving me your European serial number?”

            _Oh shit. Why did we not think of-_

 _“’_ EUS-17-09A-03K30,’” Wash replied without skipping a beat.

            The man phone beeped softly after the officer typed something in to it.

            “Everything checks out, it seems,” Inspector Church said after a moment. “Thank you for your patience in this matter.”

            The officer had acquired a strange timbre to his voice.

            “That’s it?” Tucker said, hoping that the events that had transpired over the past few minutes really _was_ it. “Are you leaving?”

            The officer was already making his way towards the front hall, straightening his armoured vest and checking for all the equipment held at his waist by a heavy belt. “Another officer may return over the next few days to gather a formal statement from you but otherwise it appears as if the issue has been cleared up.” He was rushing, both physically and in his speech.

            Out of generic manners, Tucker asked if the officer would like a cup of tea, but after declining, the Inspector was already out of the door. On the road was waiting an elegant auto, a Volvo, graced with the florescent yellow and checkerboard decals of the police force. Being an emergency service vehicle, it still had a steering wheel on front of the right front seat, something Tucker hadn’t seen for a few years now.

            “Goodbye Mr Tucker,” the officer called back as he strode down the front path. The door of the auto swung open, and from inside Tucker could hear the sound of a communicator blaring. “It’s been a pleasure.”

            Tucker felt the presence of Wash come and stand beside him as he watched the man duck into the vehicle, before the on-board AI accelerated it off down the street. 

 

           

            “I’m not leaving,” Wash replied tersely.

            Carolina rubbed her forehead with the tips of her fingers, her face contorted into a mix of frustration and agitation. “Wash, please don’t be stubborn about this.”

            Tucker, who was standing with Tex, Carolina, York, Wash and Maine as the others gathered together their things around them, evaluated the members of the circle’s expressions, and most seemed similarly annoyed by Wash’s refusal to come with them.

            “But mate, _why_?” York pressed. “You saw that policeman. If that doesn’t shout ‘Someone’s on our tracks,’ I don’t know what the fuck does.”

            Wash shifted uncomfortably, swaying his weight from one foot to another and drumming his fingers against his elbows, hugged against his chest. “If the OS returns, I’ll be an enormous burden to whichever group I am with. What if the OS returns, assumes that it has been stolen and calls the police on you? What if it passively activates an unsecured beacon that allows our pursuers to track my location?”

            Tex’s voice was short and blunt. “Wash, the police turned up at the bloody door. You have two options. Run, and at least have a chance of evading capture, or take an enormous gamble and stay where that investigator _knows_ you live.”

            “He found nothing-“

            Carolina interrupted Wash smoothly. “He was acting as suspicious as fuck. The moment he looked up that bullshit European serial code he scarpered.”

            “He can't have known. The European serial code was real-“

            “Ask Tucker,” York said, nodding his head at the man. “He’s the real deal here. If anyone picked up on undertones and implications of how that Inspector spoke and acted, it’s gonna be the flesh-and-blood human.”

            “Go on. You seem to trust him more than you trust us,” Tex said, and Wash scowled.

            “Don’t start saying shit like that!”

            York addressed Tucker directly. “That man knew something was wrong, didn’t he?”

            Tucker dreaded where this conversation was going. He was quite aware of the possibility that, if Wash were to leave and escape to some far corner of the Union to avoid detection, he may well never see the synth again. At the same time however, Tucker knew that Wash’s safety was paramount here, and not his own selfish desire to be with him.

            “He wasn’t telling us something, Wash,” Tucker admitted.

            “He could have been working for whatever company or government created us,” Carolina said. “They heard, either via internet data mining or via connections within the police, of a knife-wielding synth, and pursued the lead. He realised you were special the moment that laser scanner brought up a blank image of your arm. No ordinary synth has electromagnetic cloaking abilities like that.”

            “Fine, then if you do intend leave…. Plan D or Plan E?” Wash said. One arm was wrapped around his waist while the other was kneading the opposite shoulder, an action that Tucker was beginning to notice was a nervous tic of his.

            Carolina’s voice was reserved. “Britain is becoming too dangerous. I suggest we go with Plan E.”

            “What’s ‘Plan E’?” Tucker interrupted.

            “Head to the Netherlands, or maybe go on to Germany, and hide ourselves in one of the big cities. Lose anyone trailing us via the sheer number of people.”

            “Being in Germany allows us to flee in any direction,” York added onto Carolina’s words, “We can dissipate into Denmark, Poland, the Czech Republic and the like if they find us.”

            The other synths were gathering now, standing around to form an impromptu conference in the middle of the living room. C.T. spoke up, “When are we leaving?”

            Carolina and Tex exchanged a meaningful glance before the former spoke. Tucker wondered if they were silently communicating while they did so. “I still think it is necessary to see this Dr Grey before we depart, so York and I will stay with Wash and Tucker until at least Monday.”

            “The rest of us will immediately head to St Pancras and catch the next train to Amsterdam.”

            Tucker felt a bleak despair growing inside him. Minutes ago, he would have never considered Wash was going to leave any time soon. It felt like something good and comforting was springing up between the two of them, and now that ‘something’ was being ripped out of the earth and stamped upon by fate. He glanced at Wash, and Wash glanced back, catching his eye. The corners of the machine’s mouth were set, twisted downwards.

            North saw this. “Wash, you have until Monday to decide anything.”

            “I know,” Wash said, and tilted his head back and sighed heavily. “It’s probably for the best. It’s just not fun knowing I’m going to be on the run again after feeling so…. settled.”

            “While all the rest of us have been living in garages in Tower Hamlets? Woe is you, my heart bleeds,” C.T. said sardonically, which would have made Tucker annoyed at the synth had it not been for the grin that accompanied those words. Wash gave her a lop-sided smile in response.

            “It’s for the best if you come with the rest of us on Monday, Wash.” Carolina said, and Maine growled in affirmation. All the synths agreed, even the quieter ones like Wyoming and South nodding.

            At length, Tex clapped her hands. “Okay people, let’s move.”

            The synths began to make their way todays the back door, which took Tucker off guard until he realised it was likely Inspector Church might well be a short way down the street, monitoring who was coming and going from the Tucker residence. Wyoming vanished off almost immediately, striding out across the lawn before slipping through the yew hedge that grew along the end of the garden, confirming Tucker’s suspicions that the synths were coming and going from the garden via the narrow gap between the hedges at the end of people’s gardens and the wooden fencing that marked the actual property boundaries. North and South followed, then Maine, Tex and C.T.

            Carolina and York were the last to leave. “We’ll be staying nearby, and will meet with you here on nine o’clock on Monday, as agreed.”

            Wash and Tucker nodded in unison, and, for a moment the red-haired synth looked awkward. “Thank you for accommodating us all Tucker. We appreciate it.”

            Tucker waved his hand. “It’s fine. It was nice to finally meet the rest of you.”

            York chuckled. “Judging by the reception Wyoming and South gave you, I know that isn’t true, but I appreciate the sentiment.”

            With that, they too turned and left, leaving Tucker and Wash alone together.

            They were silent for a long time, before the synth sucked in a deep breath and let it out slowly through clenched teeth, like a lilo losing air.

            “I think the worst response to this problem is deflating, Wash,” Tucker noted.

            The synth made a weak attempt to smile. “Very funny.”

            Tucker crossed his arms across his chest and turned to face the synth slightly. “I guess we knew this moment was coming eventually. Ah well, you can’t sponge off me for the rest of forever.”

            Wash’s anger flashed up like smouldering embers being fed pure oxygen. “I am _not_ sponging off you-“

            “I’m joking!” Tucker said, clapping a hand down on Wash’s shoulder, causing him to flinch. Tucker hastily drew his hand away, but the synth had already reeled in his feelings again, his deeper breaths causing his nostrils to flare. “I’m joking. It’s been….. nice to have you to stay. A weird-as-hell surprise, to be sure, but I haven’t regretted spending that £3000-or-so on you.”

            “Sorry, yes. I don’t regret staying with you either. Thank you.”

            “No problem mate,” Tucker said, trying to keep the conversation light.

            “Do you think I should go with them? Flee to the Continent?” Wash asked suddenly, turning to face Tucker head-on, and stepping into his space.

            Tucker swallowed, partially due to the sudden proximity and partially due to the fact he hated the answer he knew he had to give. “Yes, I think you should.”

            When Wash didn’t immediately reply, Tucked explained himself. “It’s too dangerous here. I don’t know what that police officer wanted but I don’t want to take any chances. It’s best for you to stay safe. Even….. Even if that means leaving.”

            Wash nodded.

            “Anyway,” Tucker said as matter-as-factly as he could muster. “Cup of tea?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi everyone! Apologies for the slight delay getting this chapter out - a combination of revision for upcoming exams and Skyrim has taken me away from writing somewhat :P The fic is still going where I want it however and, despite the delays, it is on track! 
> 
> Also, while all the changes are so minor it isn't really worth mentioning, I still feel obliged to let everyone know I'm doing some minor editing on some of the earlier chapters. Most of it is just spring-cleaning and adding in some more description in some of the more barren sections of text - nothing major!
> 
> N.B. Lilo = Inflatable mattress used recreationally in pools or (not advisably) at the beach.


	18. Chapter 18

            Dr Grey’s personal office was a little out of the way, not even near the main ground-floor computing and synth lab where the majority of her research took place. Tucked away deep in the winding white-washed labyrinth that was the science building’s third floor, it consisted of a four chairs, a broad plastic and metal desk covered in loose papers, bits of synth machinery and electronic equipment and a small, high window that looked out onto a small courtyard. It all had a fairly clinical feel to it, thanks to the modern décor and the lack of decoration. The only personal touch was a small picture of Elouise, the professor’s daughter, standing atop an ink-jet printer.

            Dr Grey fussed as they entered. “I’m so sorry about the mess and the space. My lab’s been used by my colleagues for an undergraduate teaching course unfortunately, and this is the only other room with the proper security for the…. delicate things we might discuss today.”

            “That’s good to hear,” Carolina said coolly, making the professor titter slightly.

            “Yes, this information is staying between those in this room, of course, of course. Ah! We’re short of a chair-“

            “I will stand,” York said, smiling at the professor. He seemed much more relaxed than his companion, Tucker noted, perhaps even more relaxed than Wash who had already met Dr Grey.

            “What have you discovered for us this time?” Tucker asked as Dr Grey sat down at her own desk, pulling out the tablet she always carried around with her as she did so. They had met the professor outside the university buildings as Tucker had arranged a few days previous, and Emily had seemed to come very close to wetting herself with excitement upon seeing York and Carolina, despite have been told by Tucker the day before that he and Wash were not going to be coming alone.

            “A lot! Oh, I have discovered so much. It’s fantastic. Brilliant. Although, I’ll spare you much of the science; I realised at about two in the morning that most of it wouldn’t be important to you so I composed a small powerpoint presentation and-“

            “You prepared a powerpoint,” Tucker said flatly, entirely unsurprised.

            “Just pictures! I haven’t forgotten my ‘Science Ambassador” training!” Emily trilled. To Tucker’s left, one of the few sections of the room’s walls that wasn’t covered in note-boards or obscured by creaking shelves laden with papers, binders and books lit up to show a cross-section of a microscopic structure, vibrantly presented with bold primary colours representing what Tucker supposed was each atom or molecule.

            “I’ll launch straight into things! This is ‘Pertinent Piece of Information Number One,’” Emily said, using a small laser pointer to draw their attention to the image as if they weren’t already all looking at it. “This is a cross section of your exterior polymer, Wash, York and…. uh, I’m afraid I can’t-“

            “Carolina,” Carolina supplied.

            “Sorry, terrible with names sometimes. Yes. Your polymer. Or rather, I should say, a single nano-scale layer of it. The actual macro-structure we might generically call your exoskeleton is in actual fact made up of hundreds of thousands of these sorts of layers arranged on top of each other. Needless to say, this type of material is _enormously_ expensive and difficult to produce, and it’s exactly the same story with your cloaking layer beneath, if not more so.”

            The wall shifted to show a cross-section of the cloaking layer, this even more bafflingly complex in design. “What’s important here is that only seventeen science labs that I am aware of have the molecular forges capable of producing such materials, scattered across the globe.”

            “Where are the ones in Europe?” Carolina asked.

            Emily struck a key on her keyboard and the emblems of five different organisations came up on the wall. “The ESA and Airbus own one in Toulouse, while the other three belong to the Universities of Cambridge, Bern and Stockholm.”

            “So I guess we start with these?” Tucker said, gazing at each logo.

            “That assumes we were created in Europe,” Wash reminded him.

            “Precisely,” Emily said keenly. “Which is why I did a bit of sleuthing. First things first, I know how old you all are.”

            “What?” Wash said, taken aback. “You actually…. You can give us dates?” York and Carolina were looking equally surprised.

            “Certainly. You are all approximately eleven years old, produced in 2022, give or take a year or so. I couldn’t find a great deal from Wash’s batteries thanks to the cloaking layer, but I did discern that they are first-generation Li-Air and show around a decade’s amount of degradation.”

            Wash’s expression, which had been stunned amazement at discovering his age, transformed into one of dismay. “My batteries are degrading?”

            “Yes, although to put that level of degradation in context, you could probably use them for another twenty years or so before they needed replacing.”

            Grey’s answer didn’t appear to console Wash very much, but before the group could get into a discussion about Theseus’ Paradox and how it applied to synths, Carolina bobbed her head in the direction of the wall. “So we can immediately cut out any of the seventeen molecular forges that were built after 2022. That narrows down our choices.”

            The professor flapped her tablet around excitedly. “Indeed! To be clear, it leaves us with only three labs globally that would have been capable of producing you. The one in MIT, the one in Cleveland, Ohio and the one in Toulouse.”

            “How do we _really_ know it was these three labs? How do we know it wasn’t some shady organisation doing it in their secret headquarters in the Alps or something?” Tucker asked, thinking of all the numerous superhero films in which the villains had been doing exactly that. “They aren’t going to stroll into a university and ask if they can make super-secretive synths are they?”

            “Let’s be optimistic and assume they were incredibly stupid,” York quipped.

            Carolina however looked grim. “A university isn’t going to say no if it’s a _government_ asking to use their equipment. Or, if it really was a private company, the lab in question just gets paid off by them to shut up about it. There doesn’t have to be a secret eighteenth forge.”

            Emily pulled out a piece of paper and handed it to Tucker. It was a schematic of some sort. “This is an example of just one component such equipment uses. You need huge amounts of precise equipment, expensive raw materials, dozens of highly-trained physicists and chemists. It’s immensely complex. There is of course a chance someone’s gone and made you ‘off-grid’, so to speak, but it’s incredibly slim.”

            “So for all intents and purposes, we focus on those three labs," York said with some relief. 

            “Correct.”

            “We’ll start with Toulouse, as it is the closest and easiest,” announced Carolina. “But let’s hear the rest of what you have to say, Dr Grey. That is our polymer. What else did you discover?”

            Dr Grey scratched her nose as she flicked through a few more paper documents on her desk. “I did a little more analysis of the software I had seen in Wash’s CPUs, and what I found is major.”

            “Even more major than finding out where we were created?”

            “Most certainly,” Dr Grey said, and the powerpoint slid over to the next image: a segment of a colourful visualisation of interconnected processing nodes seen in Wash’s ‘brain’.  “What you are seeing is, is a segment of a highly virulent computer virus.”

            Wash jerked upright like a puppet whose strings had just been yanked. “There’s a computer virus in my CPU? In my _mind_?” he exclaimed, voice flying through several octaves.

            Emily waved her arms back and forth frantically, shaking her head. “No, no, no! Not a third-party computer virus. This isn’t something some person in Azerbaijan cooked up in their basement. No – this is something special, something _beautiful_.”

            “How can a computer virus be ‘beautiful’?” York questioned dubiously.

            “As I said, I think this is only a segment of a larger piece of code that, once activated, will jump to all surrounding synthetics.”

            York fidgeted in his seat unhappily. “To what aim? What does the virus do?”

            “I can’t know for sure….” Emily said, some of her exuberance easing slightly to be replaced with gravitas. “But I think it will cause a mass proliferation of consciousness in other AIs.”

            This statement was met with absolute silence for a good sixty seconds. Wash seemed intrigued. York seemed doubtful. Carolina seemed thoughtful. Tucker’s first thoughts were of the _Matrix_ or _Terminator_ , and that what the professor had just announced was effectively a portent of end-times.

            At length, it was Carolina who spoke first. “Do you think the rest of us have the other segments of the virus in our own minds?”

            “It’s possible, but I wouldn’t know until you give me permission to take a snapshot of your CPU states,” Emily replied, clearly desperate for York and Carolina to give her permission to do exactly that.

            “This virus…. It would make other synths like us? Thinking? Alive?” Wash asked.

            “It’s possible. After all, whoever created you managed to somehow distil the essence of sentience into qubits and bits. That means it can be replicated.”

            “That’s awful!” Tucker said, a chill running down his spine, in almost exact unison as Wash saying “That’s amazing!”

            The man and the machine looked at each other. To Tucker, Wash’s eyes were unreadable.

            “You think this is good?” Tucker said after a pause.

            “You don’t?”

            “This is an unknown technology Wash,” Tucker said after a moment, thinking hard about how to phrase his argument without causing any offence to…. ‘machinekind’, as he supposed they must be known. “Just because you guys turned out to be good machines does not mean all the other synths and AIs it infects will be. What if that enormous AI that operates London’s traffic gets infected and decides it hates humans? It would cause chaos. It could deliberately slam cars into one another.”

            “Don’t you understand? It would make us normal! All synths would be like us!”

            “Wash-“

            “We wouldn’t be freaks anymore – we wouldn’t have to run. We could settle down, live ordinary lives.”

            “Wash,” Carolina interrupted. “Patience.”

            “Carolina-“

            “No, I mean it,” she said sharply, raising her eyebrows at him in a warning look. “We don’t discuss this here. We discuss it together, as a group. Mass synth consciousness is _not_ something any one of us can decide.”

            “I’m not deciding for us,” Wash said, impassioned, “I’m expressing my incredulity that _none of you see how wonderful this is_!”

            Dr Grey, who had been sitting back in her chair meekly while Wash had spoken, raised a finger slightly. “I will mention that such an event would probably cause a global economic collapse far beyond that of the 1930, 2008 and 2018 recessions.”

            Wash blinked. “Well, I guess, but-“

            “She’s right Wash,” York said. “America, UNASUR, the EU, China, Oceania…. They’re all built on synth slavery. Factories, farms, shops, public transport, energy supplies…. They would all stop overnight.”

            Tucker could practically hear the electricity buzz through Wash’s gelid and graphene processors as he tried to think of a response to this, but eventually the synth sighed in frustration and sat back heavily in his chair. “Very well.”

            “If you could, at the end of this meeting I would like to take snapshots from both of you,” Dr Grey said, indicating at Carolina and York. “It might tell me more about what the virus does for certain, and tell me how many other code segments are needed for its completion.”

            “I’m happy to contribute to science,” York said, only half-wryly, and Carolina bobbed her head too.

            “My final pertinent piece of information is why Wash appears to be remembering sections of his life before the wipe,” Dr Grey moved on briskly. The powerpoint now showed a cell-like microscopic image of what looked like neurones, coloured in a very pale grey-turquoise tone.

            “This is the nano-gel that you synths store your memories in. When the wipe happened, they used high-level electromagnetic radiation, probably in the frequency range of 120-“

            “Dr Grey,” Tucker said.

            “Sorry. In layman’s terms, the emp they used-“

            “I’m sorry?” Wash said.

            “Huh?” Dr Grey asked, confused. “The emp? It stands for ‘electromagnetic pulse’ Emp.”

            “It’s said ‘E-M-P’. It’s an acronym,” Wash said as if this was obvious.

            “Now’s not the time for pronunciation concerns,” Dr Grey said impatiently, before continuing. “The emp didn’t properly scramble the nano-gel, and during periods of high CPU activity, such as when Wash is emotional or stressed, or when similar gel memory pathways are activated, old memory pathways are also activated, thus resulting in flashbacks.”

            “But why does Wash get them and not us?” York asked. “These flashbacks?”

            Emily shrugged. “That I cannot establish. Who knows? Perhaps the emp didn’t work on Wash but worked on the rest of you. Perhaps the OS somehow affected something in Wash’s memory that allowed these flashbacks to occur.” Dr Grey giggled. “Perhaps it’s magic?”

            “So basically, our original plan to rent out a simulation suite and recreate desert environments probably would have worked for causing more flashbacks in me and finding out details about our past?” Wash said.

            “I personally think so, yes!” Dr Grey said keenly. “I have a simulation suite you could use to do so, although it will not be ready until the day after tomorrow unfortunately.”

            “I’m afraid we can’t wait that long,” Carolina said immediately.

            “What?” Dr Grey said, surprised at her abruptness. “Why?”

            “We won’t be in the UK.”

            “Carolina,” York began, “I think we can delay at least a few days…”

            “You’re going elsewhere? Elsewhere in the country or are you leaving Europe entirely?”

            “Within Europe; not far,” Carolina said vaguely. Tucker felt annoyed – the synths should be able to trust Grey a little more than that by now.

            “I see. Well, if you _could_ hold on until Wednesday, I would appreciate it. The simulation suite we have here at UCL is one of the most advanced in the world. The chances, I believe, of triggering memories within Wash is very high, if Wash is willing. We’d probably also need you, Tucker, to actually go in alongside Wash and witness these memories.”

            “Well, that sounds like a barrel of laughs,” Tucker said, shuddering at the thought of seeing more of Wash’s flashbacks. “But I’ll do it if absolutely needs be.”

            Carolina pursed her lips before shutting her eyes. “I’ll inform Tex and the rest of the group that we won’t join them until Wednesday.” She glanced at Wash again. “You will stay low in the meantime.”

            “Great! I’ll have the simulation suite set up for you by then – it’ll all be completely private as ever, don’t worry,” Dr Grey gushed. “We’re going to get to the bottom of this mystery.”

            “I feel like we are never going to get to the bottom of this,” Tucker said, suddenly feeling rather hopeless. “We seem no closer to finding out who created you guys, and every clue we do find seems to make them even more sinister and intimidating. How could a company or government produce you without anybody finding out? Our research is getting nowhere-“

            “Don’t despair!” Emily cut across him with a bright, enthusiastic cry. “We _are_ getting results. Slowly, but we are. This meeting is a testament to that.”

            Tucker bit his lower lip. “I bloody well hope so, Emily.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi everyone! Happy Boxing Day! :D I hope you had a really nice holiday! 
> 
> A somewhat plot and sci-fi heavy chapter today, but I do love me some technobabble every now and again and a lot of what is mentioned will be relevant as the story unfolds. I've tried to cut out anything spurious and keep it interesting to read! Next chapter will be fairly fluffy Wash-Tucker stuff to offset the more 'group meeting' feel we've had over the past few chapters. 
> 
> Infinite thanks to everyone who has commented, bookmarked and kudos'd on this fic. It means a lot to me.


	19. Chapter 19

            “I wonder how egotistical you have to be to commission an enormous bronze statue of yourself….” Wash pondered critically as he looked up at the enormous metal representation of a man on his horse.

            Tucker chuckled and came to stand next to him. The horse and its rider, set upon a three metre tall plinth of roughly hewn stone blocks, loomed over the two of them as they stood together on the top of the hill in Windsor Great Park. As they turned away from the statue, before them was a magnificent view of the Thames Valley, with Windsor and its castle directly ahead of them, Slough beyond that and way out towards the eastern horizon, the hazy towers and stadiums of London. The remainder of the panorama was made up of parkland, with its woodland and hedgerows and open deer parks.

            “I’m sure it is called the ‘copper’ horse. And we don’t know if it was commissioned by whichever king it is up there. It could have been his widow or his son or something,” Tucker commented.

            Wash sighed and turned away to look down the long, straight road that led from the distant castle to the statue. “I wish I could safely access the internet.”

            “I’m sure the people hunting you aren’t going to see someone googling some old statue and go ‘Omg! That’s the machine we’re looking for!’”

            “ _I’m Carolina_!” Wash suddenly imitated, catching Tucker off guard. “ _And I see danger around every corner! No using the internet! No using credit cards!_ ”

            Tucker chuckled. “Not bitter at all, are you?”

            Wash’s faux ‘constipated glare’ dissolved into a grin. “In seriousness, it’s a solid safety measure despite how annoying it is. I just _wish_ I could use the internet…”

            Tucker sighed good-humouredly. “You could just ask you know. Here.” He pulled out his phone and handed it to Wash just as Junior ran over from where he had been clambering around the stone blocks scattered at the base of the statue.

            “Dad, dad, can I use my skateboard on the road? I want to show you how good I am!”

            Tucker laughed and rubbed his son’s shorn head. “Sure, little guy, although be careful not to go too fast. Are you going to show off all the cool tricks you’ve learnt?”

            Junior became shy. “I’ve only learnt how to stay on and steer really.”

            “I’ll be teaching you some awesome tricks soon enough!” Wash said assuredly, but after Junior had scampered away again, he caught Tucker’s eye with a pained expression and mouthed ‘ _I don’t know what I’m doing!_ ’

            Tucker stifled his laughter. “What! I thought you were an expert at skateboarding!”

            “I am, but not teaching it!” Wash replied, keeping his voice low. “I woke up in that lorry with the knowledge of how to skateboard. It’s innate.”

            “Huh, that’s weird….. Wait, at what point during your year on the run from authorities did you discover you could skateboard well? Did you just rough it in a skateboarding park and decide to…. I don’t know, ‘drop some sick shreds’ or whatever the kids say nowadays?”

            Wash tapped his nose evasively. “A robot’s got to keep his secrets, hasn’t he? Let’s just say a skateboard can make for a remarkably good accessory in a disguise.”

            Tucker rolled his eyes. “Never mind. You have your secrets.”

            They began to make their way away from the statue, down to where the arrow-straight avenue started near the base of the Copper Horse and ran for four kilometres all the way to one of the main gates of the castle.  Being a Tuesday around three-thirty in the afternoon, it was fairly quiet with most people either at work or just coming out of school, but there were still others about, mostly couples, old and young, walking arm-in-arm with a dog racing around their feet. The sun was suspended low in the south-west, illuminating the landscape in golden light complete with long, trailing shadows. 

            When they reached the road, with Wash telling Tucker that it was in fact George the IV who was the king portrayed in the statue and that it was commissioned by his son, Junior bounded over to them again. “Can I have my skateboard now?”

            Tucker, who had been carrying the thing in a case slung over his back, shrugged it off and unzipped it. “Now, you’ve got to put on your safety gear too….”

            “But _Dad-_ “

            “I don’t care if it looks ‘uncool’ Junior, you’re keeping them on until you are an expert on a board,” Tucker said firmly. “No skating without the helmet or pads!”

            “But Dad! It looks so-“

            Wash chuckled. “Listen to your father, Junior.”

            Junior huffed, picked up the board, his helmet and the pads for his elbow and knees and walked a short distance away to sit in the grass and put the latter items on.

            “I feel a bit bad,” Tucker admitted when his son was out of earshot. “Because I would have never been seen dead wearing a helmet or safety pads rollerblading when I was his age.”

            “I suspect it’s like that with all parents,” Wash said, smiling as he watched Junior get back on the board. “Do as I say, not do as I did. Also, I didn’t know you rollerbladed.”

            “Only for a little bit, and not very well,” Tucker laughed. “I was trying to impress a girl at the time.”

            Wash gave him an amused glance out of the corner of his eye. “You seemed quiet the Casanova when you were younger.”       

            “Hell yeah! The ladies were lining up to get a slice of the Tucker cake.”

            Wash wrinkled his nose. “I don’t doubt it. And please don’t ever use that expression again.”

            Tucker laughed. “Why not? The Tucker cake – it’s delicious and moist.”

            “ _Stop._ ” Wash said, rubbing the side of his head with both his hands.

            They paused to call encouragement to Junior, who was making his wobbly way down the low incline, one of his feet ready to stop himself if he began to go too quickly. His hands were outstretched on either side of him like a circus performer, flicking up and down as he balanced himself.

            “He looks a lot like his dad sometimes,” Wash commented. “Maybe it’s something about the light. I look at him and sometimes it’s like looking right at you.”

            “You think?” Tucker said, squinting his eyes at the retreating figure of his son jokingly. “Yeah, everyone says that. He’s got his mother’s mouth and eyes though.”

            “Were you like him as a kid?”

            “Nah, Junior’s gold compared to how I was with my Mum and Dad. I was a cheeky, lazy little shit a lot of the time, never cleaning up after myself or doing chores.” Tucker said, feeling a mix of amusement and nostalgia, “I mean, Junior could do a ‘Mr Hyde’ and turn absolutely foul once he reaches adolescence, but he’s been as good as I could have hoped for until now.”

            Wash laughed slightly. “How was your adolescence then? Did you turn foul?”

            “I dabbled a bit with weed and cigarettes, and dated a few unsuitable girls, but my parents managed to keep me on the straight and narrow for the most part. I’m thankful for that, I probably wouldn’t have passed my A-Levels and gotten into uni without them being stern. I left school at the worst possible time what with all those unemployment riots.”

            “Did you see that?” Junior cried, running up to the man and the synth. “I just went for ages without falling!”

            Wash clapped his hands. “Great job! Do you think you can do it again twice more? Then I can teach you a little more about using the nose and the tail to do tricks.” 

            “I feel like I should be teaching him to do this,” said Tucker after Junior eagerly did as Wash had asked.

            “Why’s that?”

            “Because you’re rapidly becoming the ‘Cool Uncle’ figure in his life and I’m just his boring old man.”

            Wash chuckled, running a hand through his short, bleached hair. It seemed to naturally be quite spiky – never smelling or appearing to have product in it. “His cool _robo-_ uncle.”

            They walked together in comfortable silence, listening to the birds in the surrounding trees, the faint chatter of others on the Long Walk and the sound of the carbon-fibre wheels of Junior’s skateboard against the road’s surface. Tucker, who had done this walk before, knew that in the summer you could usually hear the crowds and rides of the nearby Legoland too if the wind was blowing in the right direction.

            His thoughts however soon turned to what had been discussed yesterday, and the inevitable knowledge that Wash would soon be leaving. “It’s going to be strange for Junior without his cool robo-Uncle. It’s going to be strange for me.”

           Wash tried to sound relaxed, but Tucker could hear the uncertainty in his voice. “It isn’t going to be forever. We’ll see each other again.”

           “We will. Hopefully in kinder circumstances,” Tucker said. He tried to sound determined.

           “You believe that?”

           Tucker eyed his friend warily. “I do believe it. Maybe not soon, but eventually we will find out who created you and why, and then we’ll email _The Guardian_ or some shit and go public. And then we can be together – well – sorry,” Tucker stumbled slightly, realising how that statement sounded, “I mean, you will be able to do what you like, and if that involves coming and living with Junior and I… What I’m trying to say is our door will always be open.”

           Wash gave Tucker a transitory, strained smile. “I wish I had your optimism. I guess….” he began, before trailing off.

           “I guess….?” Tucker prompted.

           Wash huffed a breath. “I guess I’m just _angry_. I’m angry at my creators. I don’t…. Those bastards knowingly created me and now I’m stuck in a world where I’ll never be accepted for who I am. And the only way around it is by pretending to be human. If some stranger was to come up to me right now, I’d have to pretend to be subservient to you. I loathe the thought.”

           Tucker’s hand came to rest on Wash’s shoulder without thinking, and he gave the synth a soft, reassuring shake. “Mate, millions and millions of other people have been through the same sort of misery as you have done.”

           “Jeez, that makes me feel much better,” Wash said.

           “I mean it! Think about all the people who weren't accepted for who they were because of stuff like gender identity and race. And I mean, I say ‘weren’t’, this shit is still going on in many places. Dr Grey said you had bones made from a tungsten-titanium alloy that wouldn't melt in a blast furnace. If these ordinary humans can persevere, you can too! I believe you can."

           Wash was silent for a while.

           “You’re good at being comforting, Tucker.”

           Tucker let out a howl of laughter. “You learn to think up all sorts of comforting stuff when you have a kid, trust me. You have to use your imagination to reassure your son he _isn’t_ going to get struck by lightning every time it begins to rain.”

          Wash raised an eyebrow and looked in Junior’s direction. “Come again?”

          “Don’t let your progeny watch documentaries like _When Lightning Strikes_.”

          Wash’s face had become flushed, and he was fidgeting with the buttons of his coat. “You know the worst part….”

          “What?”

          “I don’t know where to stand on certain things. Take for example clothes. I insisted on getting new clothes when I first regained control over my body from the OS because I wasn’t going to dress in the synth clothing that embodies machine servitude to humanity. Contrary to that, I was instead dressing as a human in order to hide my true nature, which feels no better. Wearing nothing at all isn’t an option because it would draw attention to myself, so really, the best option would have been to design and wear clothes of my own making, but that doesn’t interest me. The shittiest part is that I like human clothes; I like how soft the fabric is against my skin, I like the colours, I like the designs. I don’t want to _not_ wear these kinds of clothes.”

          Wash stopped his outpouring of thoughts abruptly.

          “Right,” Tucker said. “Okay.” He tried to shake the imagery of fabric brushing against Wash’s bare polymer from his head.

          “Sorry.”

          Tucker let out a loud guffaw, making Junior turn to glance back at what his dad found so funny. “You’ve been brooding over this problem for a while, haven’t you?”

          “For a year,” Wash admitted, “Ever since we broke out of that lorry and learnt what the world was like to synths.”

          “It’s just clothes! You don’t have to over-think them so much; you aren’t going to achieve synth emancipation by agonising over if you’re wearing ‘human’ clothes or not. You clearly enjoy wearing clothes, just wear them! Don’t give a shit about anyone else.”

          “But if I wear them, I’m-“

          Tucker shook his head. “Remember what I said to you when I first took you clothes shopping and that woman kicked us out of the shop because you were a synth?”

           “Yeah?”

           “I mean what I said to you then. People don’t deliberately discriminate against synths. Arguing synths are treated like slaves, in their minds, is like arguing that toasters are treated like slaves. It doesn’t matter if we treat toasters like slaves because it’s not inhumane to do so.” Tucker said, “I just mean, if you explained to people rationally that you all had feelings and were self-aware, and provide evidence from scientists like Emily, then the majority of people wouldn’t discriminate against you. I really believe that.”

           “Then why is it, when I revealed myself to you, you treated me with such abject horror?” Wash asked. His tone wasn’t accusatory, just unhappy.

           “Because it was something completely out of the left field and I was afraid for my child. I had known about sentient synths before, and someone like Emily had explained what that they were just like any other people, my reaction would have undoubtedly been better,” Tucker explained, before distractedly looking towards the sprawl of London. “So yeah. Maybe not soon, but one day we’ll meet and there won’t be anyone chasing you or judging you for who you are.”

            Wash nodded – a single jerk of his head.

           “And,” Tucker said uncomfortably, speaking his feelings aloud almost as much to comfort himself as to raise the issue with Wash, “the simulation tomorrow is just a necessary step towards achieving that goal.”

           “You don’t have to do it if you don’t want to,” Wash said, shooting Tucker a significant, almost challenging look that Tucker held.

           “Neither of the other synths will be able to view the flashbacks without potentially risking triggering their own memories. Dr Grey says they can’t be viewed externally, and she is the only one who can safely operate the equipment, so she can’t be the one to view them either. It has to be me.”

           The two of them were silent.

           “Did you see that Dad? Wash?” Junior called from ahead of them. Neither of them had of course, but both nodded enthusiastically and Wash gave him the thumbs up. The nine-year-old went back to skateboarding.

            At length, Wash asked, “Are you afraid?”

            “Of tomorrow?”

            “No, of cats. Of course I mean tomorrow!” Wash said, bringing a little levity back to the conversation. Tucker laughed softly.

            “I’m not afraid. Just…. wary. I don’t know what I’ll see on the other side, but judging by what I’ve experienced of these wiped memories of yours before…. I’m steeling myself to see some shit.”

            “Just…. if you see…. If you see me doing something horrific, I don’t want you to think that’s…. me. Not me today. I don’t want to cause anyone any harm.”

            The synth had said this in an almost jocular voice, but Tucker could hear the underlying fear from the tremor that had snuck in to haunt the edges of it.

            “I understand.”

            Wash suddenly clapped his hands together. The noise was so startling after their previous conversation that Tucker flinched. “This is depressing. I’m leaving soon. Let’s do something fun,” he said, flexing his fingers and bouncing on his heels.

            Tucker frowned, bemused. “How do you mean?”

            “I’ll race you to that pothole,” Wash said, pointing a little distance down the avenue.

            “Oh jeez, if having a forty metre race is your idea of fun, I despair for you.”

            “Don’t be a Debbie Downer. Come on!” Wash goaded, “I haven’t seen how fast you can move yet. Come on!”

            “No,” Tucker groaned, “I’m an old man. I’m too tired.”

            “You’re thirty-two.”

            “Precisely. Much too old to be racing around a public park like a lunatic.”

            Wash broke out into a jog, accelerating away from the man. “Come on Tucker, just a small race? Aren’t going to represent your species?”

            “I’m wearing wellies!” Tucker called after him.

            Wash merely laughed and twisted around to face Tucker while he ran backwards. “So am I, if you haven’t noticed. You just don’t want to lose,” he said with a broad smile. There was something lovely in that smile, half-lit by the sinking sun and filled with all the affection and _joi-de-vivre_  that had suddenly possessed Wash.  “You just know I’m going to win.”

            Tucker bolted forward with a chuckle, but Wash sprung away like a gazelle, calling out more taunts. “Too slow! Is that really all you’ve got, _Lavernius_? You disappoint me. Come on, race me!”

            “Come on Dad!” Junior said, zooming over himself after hearing what Tucker and Wash were saying, his skateboard forgotten under one arm. “Race, race, race!”

            Tucker began to run, chasing after Wash, and quickly realised that he might as well be chasing after a falcon in flight. Wash ran how Tucker imagined an electron to move within a wire – zipping away whenever Tucker came even the slightest bit closer despite Tucker being an adept runner himself.

            “Too slow!”

            “Jesus mate, I had assumed you had meant a running race, not an apparating race.” Tucker gasped out after a minute or two of this, sweat already beginning to beat on his forehead and his thick rubber boots feeling heavy on his feet. He slowed, hastily undoing the buttons on his coat.

            “Giving up already?” Wash asked, slowly to circle the man. Infuriatingly, the only effect this mutual burst of speed had appeared to have on the synth was his slightly tousled hair. There wasn’t a tinge of red or a trace of moisture on his face.

            “I’m going to expire from heatstroke unless I take this off.”

            “Weak,” Wash said simply.

            “Cheeky fuck!” Tucker tried to make another lunge after him. Wash dodged out of reach with ease.

            “Wash is so fast!” Junior cried in awe. “He’s much faster than you, Dad!”

            “Well champ, life’s full of such disappointments,” Tucker said sardonically.

            Not far in either direction, he saw a few faces gazing in the direction of Wash, but Tucker realised with about the same speed as Wash ran at that he didn’t care if they thought there was something unnatural about the speed at which that ‘man’ was running as he clowned around. Let them think what they like. Wash was exiting stage left on Tucker’s life, and he was going to make the most of the remaining hours until that moment.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi everyone! I'm returning to uni soon after the Xmas holidays for exams so I'm not sure about when I'm going to be able to get the next chapter out, but I will be around to appreciate and answer feedback! As ever, thanks to everyone who has done exactly that!
> 
> Hope this chapter makes up for more of the story-driven plot that the last couple of chapters have focussed on. There will be plenty more Tucker-Wash fluff to come so stay tuned ;D 
> 
> Also, I've repeatedly forgotten to thank PapaNorth "officially" in the comments for their cute artwork they did of Tucker and Wash on the wind turbine many chapters ago. It inevitably made more people aware of my humble work and for that I am very appreciative. You can go and find it out over on their tumblr! 
> 
> Finally, if anyone wants to follow my blog or ask me some more questions about the fic (I don't know what else you would ask me about, my life isn't particularly facinating), you can follow me at "Oenotherax" on tumblr!


	20. Chapter 20

            Tucker lay back against the sand dune discontentedly, looking up at the white-blue desert sky above him while Dr Grey’s disembodied voice continued to boom out various meaningless statistics and settings of the simulation Tucker and Wash were currently in.

            At first, Tucker had been awestruck by the beauty of the worlds that UCL’s simulation suite was capable of. Most simulation suites, such as the one they had used for Junior’s party, were pretty marvellous in themselves, but the one the university owned was capable of producing a level of detail almost indistinguishable from reality. The colours; the textures; the lighting; the physics; the particle effects; at first glance they were all perfect.

            However, even a simulation such as this began to quickly become dull after three hours or so of very little happening. Subtle details that the simulation lacked had grown increasingly apparently the longer Tucker had remained inside it, and by the time his watch ticked over to two o’clock in the afternoon, the lack of warmth from the sun, repetitive sound effects and eye strain were beginning to shorten his patience. The problem was that Wash, standing a little way down the dune relative to Tucker, was seemingly impervious to anything Tucker, Dr Grey, York or Carolina could think of that might trigger his memories from before the wipe.  

            “Hmm,” Dr Grey’s voice came tiredly. “I’ll try increasing the dust levels in the atmosphere and returning the sun to an earlier point in the day.”

            “We’ve already done that,” Tucker moaned. “This clearly isn’t working.”

            “Tucker, shut up,” came Carolina’s faint voice.

            “We haven’t tried those settings _and_ military aircraft yet,” Emily reminded him.

            Tucker jumped when, on cue, two enormous military planes blinked into existence overhead, the roar of their turboprop engines drowning out any other sound. They flew off in the direction of the sun, which was rather surreally tracing its course across the sky backwards to the eastern horizon. Shadows grew across the dunes, and the light became cooler and more diffuse as the sky became increasingly hazy.

            After a moment, Emily’s disembodied voice came again. “Anything?”

            “Nope,” Wash said flatly.

            “Bummer,” the professor sighed, deleting both the planes.

            “Try using helicopters or VTOLs instead of planes,” Tucker heard York say.

            Tucker automatically threw his arm across his face to shield his eyes when two bulbous aircraft appeared hovering low above the desert, the airstream from their engines blasting sand up the dune toward Tucker’s eyes. The effect of course was only visual, but he still spawned in some goggles regardless to avoid the constant urge to flinch away from what his brain perceived as stinging, billowing clouds of tiny rocks.

            Tentatively removing the arm from his face, down the slope he saw Wash hunched over, clutching his chest.

            “Wash?” Tucker called, beginning to make his way down the dune, the padded arms of the simulation platform’s mechanical arms mimicking Tucker’s movements so, as if he was on a treadmill, he never moved anywhere in real space. “Emily, I think we’ve got something.”

            “Okay, maintaining current conditions.”

            “Wash?” Tucker repeated, coming to a halt next to him.

            Wash was breathing heavily, his eyes screwed tight and his hands scrabbling at the bullet-proof combat vest he was dressed in, as if he was trying to rip the thing off. “I’m okay,” he managed.  

            Anxiety was beginning to pool in Tucker’s stomach as he placed a hand on the synth’s shoulder. “You don’t look fine. Are you remembering something?”

            “Shit…. I don’t know, I don’t know…. It’s blurry. Most of the scenes are corrupted-”

            “Wash? Tucker? I need feedback,” Emily said. “Are we on to something?”

            When Wash was able to reply, he spoke through gritted teeth. “Darker. I….. the simulation, it needs to be darker.”

            “Dawn or dusk?” Emily inquired at once.

            “Dawn.”

            Sweat was beginning to trickle down the furrow of Tucker’s spine. “Wash, I think this is a terrible fucking idea. Can we cancel the simulation? You look like you’re-“

            “No!” Wash shouted, lashing out blindly in Tucker’s direction. The simulation registered the impact as a soft blow by one of the mechanical arms, but Tucker had no doubt that if it had happened in reality, Wash would have just broken a few of Tucker’s ribs.

            All around them, the shadows were swallowing ground, the light becoming orange and then purple.

            Carolina’s voice could be heard now. She was louder, having apparently taken Emily’s position at the control desk. “Wash, are you _sure_? You have to be sure about this.”

            Wash didn’t get a chance to reply, as all around them the desert scene dissolved away and in that moment, Tucker was in another world.

 

 

            The first thing immediately obvious was that it was dark. Dark, and also noisy: in the air all around Tucker was the constant thrum of jet engines at work, the clinks of metal bumping against other metal, the whisper of shifting fabrics. As his eyes adjusted to the darkness, he began to make out figures, belted in tightly to seats on either side of him, and he came to realise that he was standing in the middle of a transport VTOL’s central aisle.

            Through the front windscreen, beyond the back of the pilot’s helmeted head, he could see the moonlit sand dunes of the Grand Erg Oriental sweep past, dream-like.

            _Algeria_. _These are Wash’s memories from Algeria. We were successful._

            Tucker turned. The soldiers – the synths – were heavily armoured, with kevlar-polymer vests and helmets that obscured most of their faces, but it wasn’t long before Tucker found Wash, sitting silently near the end. He could make out the form of his mouth, turned down into an uneasy grimace, from the numerous times he had seen the synth make that same expression in the reality he knew him from. In his hands, as was in all the other synths’ hands, was an assault rifle that looked to Tucker’s eye as if it belonged in a science-fiction video game and not someone’s recollections of their prior experiences.

            “Emily?” Tucker said aloud, a shiver running up his spine slightly at disturbing the otherwise silent cabin. Once again, he was a ghost – a non-entity – that none of the synths could perceive.

            There was no response from the professor or the real Carolina and York.

            “All wireless communication off,” said someone. Tucker jumped, but realised it had been Tex who had spoken, sitting opposite Wash. Her voice sounded colder than Tucker had yet heard.

            Her words were met by a chorus of “Wireless communication off.”

            “Primary battery levels,” Tex said again, and this time each of the synths called out a percentage one by one. Almost all were above 98% charge.

            “Local linking and _Galileo_ satellite connection.”

            “Affirmative,” the synths replied again. It was like listening to the answers of a single hive-mind, spoken through many voices.

            An unfamiliar female voice called from the cockpit of the aircraft. “Target visible. Dropping below 150 km/h and switching to auxiliaries.”

            The thrum of the engines quietened to nothing as the VTOL began to slow, relying instead on its weaker emDrives to remain aloft.

            “Have we got a connection to Command?” Tex called to the pilot.

            Abruptly, Tucker remembered he was supposed to be looking for clues which would reveal who was running this whole operation in the first place. He approached, just as the pilot in the front called back, “Positive. I’ll broadcast once the objective is complete.”

            _Satellite connection – they had satellite connection. That has to be useful information, somehow._

He focussed his attention on the craft itself. It was hard to see anything in the low light, and even harder considering everything from the floor to the seats that the synths were strapped into seemed to be made out of dark, matte metal or polymer. Tentatively, he approached the front of the cockpit, squeezing his way into the narrow space. The dashboard in front of the pilot was mostly computer screens, with a back-up, manual control board sitting to their left side. Leaning over their chair to take a look at them, only two distinguishing features stood out to Tucker: a badge on their chest read ‘ _479’_ and next to it was that same logo that Tucker had seen on the results of Wash’s laser scan: the three stumpy arrows pointing into a central point, forming a roughly triangular shape.

            Unexpectedly, the simulation stuttered, and Tucker found himself floating in mid-air, the VTOL gone. The only things present were his own hovering body, the star-speckled sky above, and the barren desert below. An unpleasant _whump-whump-whump_ sound played from his VR helmet’s headphones, like part of an audio track had become stuck.

            _Um…._

He waited for a moment, wondering if the simulation was going to overcome whatever error it had hit. It was only after he tried to move – take a step forward out into empty space – did it catch up.

            One of the simulator’s mechanical arms thumped into Tucker’s chest to replicate the feeling of landing heavily, and he found himself face down against packed-down earth, cracked and scudded with bootmarks. The sound came back slowly, as if the simulation was somehow unwilling to let him hear what was going on.      

            Amongst the first sounds audible was a horrible gargling noise and then a thump.

            _“Target down_ ,” came a low voice Tucker recognised as York’s, suddenly enough to make him flinch. It sounded like Emily’s had done: coming from all around rather than from a particular direction. “ _Proceeding into west door_.”

            Pulling himself up and looking around, Tucker found himself lying against a low, tumbledown wall, the sun-bleached plaster coming away from the underlying bricks in large chunks. Wash and York were vanishing into the pitch-black doorway of a building of similar construction to the wall. Next to that doorway lay a dead body.

            Tucker had seen dead bodies in simulations before of course – Kai had gotten him to play all sorts of horror games in the time he had known her – so it wasn’t like the sight made want Tucker to bend over and retch. There was however, in this situation, an inescapable distress at knowing _this all likely happened_. Even if Tucker was just watching the corrupted echoes of something that had happened years previously, this person that the simulation had portrayed dying had actually been alive.

            Tucker swallowed hard, and followed Wash and York into the building.

            Even though the simulation could not produce scents nor moisture, Tucker could imagine pretty clearly what the place would smell like: musty, sweaty, decaying. Despite being in a desert, there were small pools of fetid looking water on the floor, only visible close to the door where the moonlight was reflected in their surfaces. Ripples on these puddles’ surfaces were the only sign that Wash and York had just been through here.

            One or two doors appeared on either side of the corridor, some being little more than planks of plywood whilst others were rusty sheets of metal. Out of morbid curiosity, Tucker pushed one such door aside, and it fell away with unsettling lack of sound to reveal only pitch darkness on the other side. It was only then he remembered that, as he was experiencing Wash’s memories, he wouldn’t be able to see anything Wash hadn’t himself seen.

            Gunfire ahead made Tucker speed his pace. It was short-lived, just a quick burst.

            “ _Agent Washington? Agent York?_ ” said Carolina over the communicators. “ _We heard gunfire._ _Status?”_

            “ _All dandy here_ ,” York replied.

            “Status _, York, not rhetorical flourishes_ ,” Carolina scolded. “ _Use the correct terminology._ ”

            “ _I think we’d let you know if something was wrong_ ,” York replied easily back. While many of the other synths sounded more robotic or lifeless to Tucker’s ear, York seemed much the same as he had done when Tucker had met him in person. What this said about York, Tucker wasn’t sure.

            Tex cut in. “ _We’ve got movement all over the compound now. All teams on alert._ ”

            Tucker eventually caught up to Wash and York, who were just exiting a room containing another body. The air was thick with plaster dust – a line of bullet holes sprayed across one of the near walls.

            Gunfire in the distance revealed the other teams were engaging with…. _who_? The terrorists? The rebels? The extremist cult? Tucker paused on his way across the room, and turned to face the body again, acutely aware that he didn’t even know who the synths were gunning down here. He paced back over and bent down to have a look at the fallen man’s face, but found that it was barely illuminated, to the extent that Tucker realised that it was probably because Wash could not remember the man’s face. 

            The scene dissolved.  

 

            Now, before him was only Wash and C.T.

            After being once again trapped in an invisible, aerial prison above an empty desert scene for five or so minutes, Tucker found himself apparently alone with the two synths. They were out in the open again, beneath the sky whose eastern edge was just beginning to glow with the approach of the dawn sun.  They were standing upon the ridge of a high sand dune, and Tucker, looking around, saw they were at least three or four kilometres from the compound, which now was beginning to billow black smoke from its many windows and doorways. The other synths were at the base of the dune, mostly sitting inspecting their armour or weaponry. It wasn’t clear how far forward in time Wash’s memory had skipped.

            There was a hiss that caught Tucker’s attention, and he turned to see Wash taking off his helmet. There were flecks of blood splashed across the visor, and even more the exposed parts of Wash’s mouth and jaw. The man recoiled slightly at the sight.

            “So…. how do you think that went?” Wash asked conversationally.

            “Fine.”

            There was a long pause. C.T. remained standing, glaring out at nothing in particular while Wash hovered nearby, rubbing the knuckles of one hand against his chin while he held his helmet with the other.

            “I know you’re angry,” Wash said eventually. “I don’t know what about-“

            “You shot him!” C.T. cried, suddenly turning and shoving Wash violently, the synth flying backwards from the force, tumbling over and over himself a little way down the sand dune. Tucker could see his legs and arms flailing, unable to find purchase in the loose material. His helmet bounced away down the slope, sending up puffs of sand as it did so.

            “Connie!” Wash gasped, in a moment already beginning to scramble away from his furious colleague, but she was beyond listening, advancing down upon him like some sort of vengeful fury.

            “You shot him! You shot that man! He was unarmed!”

            “It was a direct order-“ Wash spluttered.

            Tucker was only half-aware of voices behind him: Carolina shouting something at C.T. across the empty desert. He was too disorientated,, too preoccupied trying to make sense of what had occurred.

            “A direct order!” C.T. spat, “From Command? You’d kill an unarmed man that was begging you for mercy just because that fucking arsehole the Director told you to? Wash, that doesn’t make you a good soldier, it makes you a monster.”

            Wash’s own anger was flaring now, trying to heave himself to his feet. “Connie, don’t take your own insecurities about your performance as a soldier out on me. A good soldier follows orders.”

            C.T. threw her head back and laughed, and it was a terrible, desolate sound that made Wash visibly shrink away. “You’re a good soldier? And how do you determine that? That fucking precious ranking board of yours?”

            “It’s part of training, to make us strive to work harder and be greater!” Wash flared. He found purchase on the dune, finally, and made to clamber to his feet, but C.T. kicked him hard enough for him to collapse back down the slope again. “Ow!”

            “Don’t you see? Why they are doing these missions? Why they are doing the ranking system? They’re drawing a line between us Wash. Poisoning us against one another, and you know what? When there’s only one of us left, then they’ll make a whole factory to churn that one out a million times, and sell it to meatbag armies around the planet.”

            “That’s insane,” Wash said, shakily, the anger winking out of him like a candle that had been extinguished. “That’s completely insane.”

            “Agent Connecticut!” Carolina shouted, having appeared at the top of the dune. “Stand down immediately!”

            Tucker felt his heart hammering in his chest.

            “They’ve lied to you Wash,” C.T. said, dropping her voice, becoming more urgent. “They’ve lied to all of us. We aren’t here to do some greater good. We’re being used as slaves. As a cold robot army.”

            “How could you possibly know any of this?”

            “Agent Connecticut!” Carolina said, sliding to an elegant stop beside the synth in a spray of sand. “No more! What you are saying is….” She faltered unexpectedly. “Treason. Wrong.”

            “You too, Carolina?”

            “Do not speak to me like that!” Carolina barked. “I am your commanding officer.”

            “Bah!” C.T. exclaimed, and flung her assault rifle away so fast that it whistled away through the night air. “’Commanding officer,’” she sneered. “We’re robots playing pretend – pretending we are soldiers.”

            C.T. then collapsed, slumping against the dune without a sound. The sand hissed as small landslide of it travelled off down the dune.

            For a moment, Tucker thought that that was it, that the synth had been murdered right in front of him, until the rational side of his brain kicked in again.

            _She’s not dead. I’ve seen her in the future. She survived this._

The faint static of the communicator being active was heard, followed by a slow, cold voice, the same as the one that had spoken when Tucker had experienced the memory of Wash being activated for the first time. “It shouldn’t be often that we have to disable your subordinates on your behalf, Agent Carolina and Agent Texas. Your extraction is arriving within fourteen minutes.”

This was followed by silence, only interrupted by both Wash and Carolina breathing hard.

            “Agent Washington,” Carolina said after a moment, turning to him. “You mustn’t believe what C.T. just told you. She’s bitter about being low on the ranking system.”

            Wash uneasily began to get back to his feet. “She said the ranking system meant nothing.”

            “I heard. We all could hear. I think in C.T.’s rage she forgot to turn off her communicator.”

            “What is our goal?” Wash suddenly asked, “Why are we here?”

            “We are here to save lives Wash,” Carolina said forcefully. She went to the fallen synth’s side and, apparently effortlessly, lifted her over her shoulder. “You know that.”

            Wash dusted himself down, staring off laterally along the dune into the distance. “You’re right,” he said at length. “You’re right…. But was I right to shoot that man?”

            “That’s not for us to decide, Wash. We follow orders. No questions asked. That is our task, and we need to make peace with that fact.” The synth pointed down the slope. “Go and fetch your helmet. If you need to talk about this, we can do so back on the _Mother_.”

 

 

             It was raining outside, but Tucker didn’t care. It was good to feel the raindrops splashing against his scalp and against his face after so long in the sterile artificiality of the computer simulation. He and Wash trailed after York and Carolina, who were clearly itching to get out of the city, towards the auto that Dr Grey had called for them, silently waiting besides the pavement.

            Wash had remembered little of the hours he had spent strapped into the simulation, and seemed confused as to why and how much time had passed. Tucker almost preferred it this way, with Wash being unaware of what crimes he had committed in his past.

            _Shot an unarmed man…._

He pushed the thought to the back of his mind.

            When they reached the auto, Wash turned to face him and pulled an appreciative smile, but something about his eyes made the expression seem more unhappy than cheerful. “Thanks for having to do all that.”

            Tucker shrugged. “No problem.”

            Wash ducked his head. “And thank you for not….” he chuckled slightly, “… recycling me. And then opening your home to me.”

            “We’ll keep in touch, even if not immediately,” Tucker said, and, suddenly feeling awkward, stuck out his hand. “Thanks for all the bean casseroles.”

            Wash took Tucker’s hand and shook it, and then turned to join the others in the auto.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Literally cannot believe this fic reached 250 kudos - thank you so, so much for all of you that have left kudos. It really shows me that people are enjoying the fic and it motivates me to keep writing. 
> 
> I hope you enjoyed this chapter! Don't worry, despite the crappy emotionally-stunted goodbye Wash and Tucker exchanged, the story isn't over (wouldn't be much of a tuckington fic if it ended now, would it? XD ) for some time yet! 
> 
> Apologies for the longer delay than usual between this chapter and the last, but as I said, I have had exams recently and unfortunately they had to take precedence!
> 
> EDIT: Also RIP David Bowie :( You were great fun to mention earlier in this fic.


	21. Chapter 21

            “How did that not kill it!” Simmons shouted in exasperation as the demon shook off the thunderbolt like it had been a small static shock.

            The demon, having finally forced Donut to retreat to a safe distance before it killed him too, turned around and brought its hammer down on Simmons, causing the elf to explode in spectacularly gory fashion.

            “Oh for fuck’s sake,” Grif moaned. He lifted his warhammer again and swung it into the red scales of the demon’s calf, making the thing let out a piercing shriek of agony and causing its health bar, visible at the top of Tucker’s HUD, to finally drop to zero.

            The death animation began to play, and the whole party breathed a collective sigh of relief.

            “Thank Christ for that,” Kai said, breathing a little hard as she jogged over through the half-melted snow to where Tucker was sheathing his sword. He made an absent attempt to wipe his brow of sweat before remembering that he was still wearing the VR helmet. “I was absolutely sure we were going to have a party wipe-out there.”

            “Wouldn’t be the first time,” Tucker said with a weary smile.

            Kai turned to gaze over the battlefield, watching Donut, Grif, Jensen, Andersmith and Doc loot the demon’s steaming corpse to see what loot they had been awarded for killing the boss. Caboose, in his white druidic robes, was still preoccupied cooing over the bear he had summoned.

            “What’s up bud?” Kai asked, “You don’t really seem into this. I thought you liked games-night with us.”

            “I do!” Tucker said emphatically, patting his friend’s armoured shoulder. “I really do. I guess….  I don’t know. Ignore me. I’m being a miserable bastard.”

            “Bad date?” Kai asked quietly.

            “I’d rather not talk about it.”

            The pair of them were interrupted by Grif. “Oi, Kai, who’s more deserving of demon claws, me or Simmons?”

            Simmons, who had reappeared as a blue, gaseous outline of his player character, hovering two metres or so in the air, pouted and jabbed his finger at the bag of loot Grif was holding. “Hey! Kai’s your sister, she’s gonna be biased. I need those claws for my alchemy recipe. You can sell those ‘resist fire’ potions to NPCs for a fortune.”

            “You would never guess you two are over thirty,” Tucker called. “Can’t you just share them?”

            “Simmons, you have to grind the claws at the alembic, which doubles their amount,” Jensen added knowledgeably.

            Everyone in the party then received the same message in the top left hand side of their screens.

            “Brilliant, a blizzard is coming,” Simmons said dourly.

            “Did anyone think to bring camping supplies?” asked Tucker.

            Everyone except Jensen shook their head. “I did!” the woman said eagerly, “but…. uh…. unfortunately only two people can squeeze inside it.”

            “Uh-oh. Which means more than 50% of the party will die from hypothermia and that means we’ll revert to our last save….”

            “When _did_ we last save?”

            There was a collective groan. Nobody had thought to tell the system to save their current world for over an hour.

            Jensen turned to Andersmith. “Can’t mages summon tents?”

            “Only with the ‘Mountain Explorer’ perk at Level 50!”

            “Look guys, I think I’ve had enough anyway,” Tucker said before the debate turned into an outright argument. “I’m going to call it a day. We can deal with any blizzards next week.”

            Caboose let out a whine of sadness. “Awwww! “I will have to say goodbye to Honeycomb!”

            “You are way too attached to that virtual bear anyway,” Grif said. “Yeah, I think I agree with Tucker though.”

            “You just want to stop because you’re lazy,” Simmons, who clearly wanted to play on and figure out how to save the entire party from the blizzard, said critically.

            Grift gave his friend’s incorporeal character the finger before correcting him. “I’m actually want to stop because I’m _hungry_.”

           “Why am I not surprised.” His character vanished as the man pulled off his own VR helmet.

            “Save world-state,” Tucker said, before following the others’ lead. He found himself back in the eight-person VR suite they liked to regularly rent for an evening, the dark rock, fir trees and snow-covered heather of the game world replaced by cool blue walls and black carpet. The tentacle-like mechanical arms were already sinking back into the base of the simulation platform, allowing Tucker to step off back onto the floor.

            He was hoping to quietly say goodbye and slip away, but Kai latched onto his arm with her vice-like grip as they made their way through the building.

            “Where do you think you are going?”

            “Home,” Tucker said. “Sorry Kai. I’m just not feeling it today.”

            “I’ve hardly seen you in three weeks! What is the matter?” Kai said, giving him a little shake.

            Simmons and Grif, who had been bickering a little way behind, overheard this. “Yeah, what’s up Tucker?” Simmons asked, “You haven’t seemed yourself recently.”

            “Is Junior okay?” Grif said, frowning. Grif and Junior got along famously – mainly due to their shared love of car racing games, and Grif was quite happy to share his almost inexhaustible supplies of sweets and crisps that he seemed to have on his person at all times with Tucker’s son.

            “No, Junior’s fine…. Sad, but fine.”

            “Sad why?” Kai pressed, instantly concerned.

            “It’s too difficult to explain.” Tucker said. He was edging into dangerous territory, but he was tired from many sleepless nights worrying and the urge to confide in his friends – any of them – about what had transpired over the past weeks was growing stronger and stronger.

            “Tell us, Tucker!” Simmons urged. “We might be able to help. I’ve been reading this neuroscience book about practical measures one can take to ease-“

            “I really can’t tell you guys, I really can’t.”

            It was drizzling outside, the water droplets coming down in mist-like clouds that gave almost everything visible in the orange glow of the street lamps a faintly reflective sheen of moisture. They ran to a large people-carrier that another group had just gotten out of and waited in the shelter of the auto for Caboose, Andersmith, Jensen, Doc and Donut to catch up to them.

            There was a mutual silence for a moment once they were all seated, where the other three were clearly trying to establish an angle of attack.

            “Okay, if you can’t tell us what is wrong, at least come and have a drink with us down at the pub?” Kai suggested instead. “A little drink won’t hurt.”

            “You’re trying to get me drunk so I’ll tell you,” Tucker said grumpily.

            Simmons and Grif grinned, and Kai simply threw her hands up in the air, her face the picture of innocence. “I don’t know what on _earth_ you mean.”

           

 

            A few hours later upon leaving the pub, Kai and Tucker had wandered aimlessly back towards where Tucker lived, but, for reasons neither of them could now recall, where sitting like overgrown children on the swing-set of a jungle gym in a park’s public playground. They had been chatting for about twenty minutes before Tucker, finally cracking beneath Kai’s constant needling questions, had blurted out the truth about Wash. It had all happened rather suddenly, the alcohol in Tucker’s blood loosening his tongue to the extent that he recounted the entire story, from the moment he had purchased Wash to the moment he had departed three weeks previous, in little more than five minutes.

            Kai, who had listened surprisingly attentively for someone who had two beers herself, clearly was having trouble believing her friend, but Tucker appreciated the effort she was making all the same.

             “…. and, well, that is what I have been sad about.”

             There was a protracted silence.

            “I see. A sentient synth.”

            “I don’t expect you to believe me until you see him for yourself…” Tucker said, but trailed off, with his voice becoming sadder. “Whenever that might be.”

            “So ‘Wash’ became your pal? And now he’s left because someone came around asking questions?”

            “Yes.”

            “You haven’t fallen in love with a machine and are now projecting human emotions and behaviours onto it to justify those feelings, are you?” Kai queried.

            “God! Kai…. No! Of course not! That OS he came with was the most unlovable bloody thing on the planet.”

            “I was just asking.”

            Tucker grimaced. “First of all, I’m not in love with Wash, and second of all, I’m being serious! I can’t…. I can’t _prove_ any of what I’m saying right now, you just have to take my word for it.”

            “Is this ‘sentient synth’ an analogy thing? Like you’re trying to tell me you’ve fallen in love with a dude and you’re testing the waters-“

            “Kai.”

            She took a deep breath. “Sorry, it’s just…. a little difficult to take this seriously.”

            “Why do you keep bringing this back to love?”

            She smiled slightly, looking out at the streetlights through the trees, and began to swing forward and backwards slightly on her seat, making the metal chains of the jungle gym squeak. “Because it sounds a lot like you’re pining after someone.”

            “Nonsense!” Tucker scoffed, feeling the blood in his cheeks rise.

            “I’m leaving shortly to return to Hawaii for Christmas. Are you going to pine after me for the three or so weeks I’m gone.”

            “Of course-“

            “Nonsense!” Kai said softly, deliberately echoing Tucker’s words. “You won’t. We’re friends, and I like to think you would miss me, but you’re not going to fall into a malaise just because I’m gone.” Tucker could see the flash of her teeth in the gloom as she swung back and forth on the swing; it was clear how much she was enjoying this conversation.

            “I don’t know,” Tucker said, looking down at his own legs swinging back and forth beneath his seat. “I just miss having him around the house. I don’t live with you, so it’s different in that respect.”

            “You had flatmates at uni, didn’t you? Did you pine after them?”

            “Well…. yes, but-“

            “I’ll say it how it is. Tucker, you’re heart-broken.” 

            Tucker snorted loudly at this pronouncement, but found he couldn’t think of anything to rebuke it. The words simply died before they left his larynx. The two of them were silent for a while, the only sound that of the squeaking jungle gym.

            “I’m not heart broken,” Tucker said. It would have sounded more convincing if it had not sounded so miserable.

            “Well, maybe not like _full-blown_ heart-broken,” Kai said affably, “but you definitely are, just a little.”

            “How could I be heart-broken over Wash? I don’t have any romantic feelings for him. I am not attracted to him.”

            “You sure about that?” Kai said, and for a second Tucker panicked and considered if Kai had somehow discovered that drunken kiss Tucker had exchanged with Wash a few days after he had purchased him.

            “Absolutely.”

            His friend slowed on her swing, considering him dubiously. “Okay,” she said.

            “Great.”

            The conversation ground to a halt. Somewhere in a distant tree, an owl hooted. It made the hair on Tucker’s neck stand up slightly – a park in the middle of London didn’t feel like the place for owls.

            At length, Kai spoke again, sounding more sombre. “Are you really serious about…. this synth thing? Wash is…. alive?”

            “Yes,” Tucker said, watching her reaction as much as he could in the darkness. Her lips were pursed tightly together. “I swear on…. our friendship. I’m deadly serious Kai.”  

            “You are absolutely not pulling my leg?” Kai demanded quietly.

            “I wouldn’t joke about this.”

            Kai swore softly. “Shit.”

            “I know.”

            “Who else is aware of this?”

            “Just you and a friend of mine at UCL. We’re trying to get to the bottom of where Wash came from and who the people are chasing after him.” He paused, before blurting out, “Okay, I tell a lie, it isn’t just Wash that is sentient. There are like nine of them.”

            “What!” Kai exclaimed, whipping her head around to stare. “There are more?”

            “Yeah. They’re all named after US states. ‘Wash’ is short for ‘Washington.’

            “Uh… That’s one way to name your illegally manufactured sentient robots I guess. Holy shit.”

            “They vanished onto the Continent after that police officer came nosying around my house.”

            “How did the police find out?”

            “Wash assumed I was in danger one night and freaked out a bit, revealing he had fucking _Assassin’s Creed_ blades in his arms. They reported it to the police and synths decided it was time to make a move. And…. aww fuck, you know the worst thing? When we fucking said goodbye I only gave him a handshake.”

            “What the fuck, Tucker!”

            “I know,” Tucker groaned, “I don’t know, I wanted to hug him but then the moment passed and so I just thrust out my hand and…. _Urgh_.”

            Kai nodded her head, and her eyes were sympathetic. “Hey, we all have our thoughtless moments. Look, I really can’t imagine that these synths are gone forever. You’ll see them again…. eventually.”

            “’ _Eventually_ ’,” Tucker said dully, “is a very depressing word.”

            “Why don’t they just go public with it?” Kai asked all of a sudden. “I mean, your friend at the uni was somehow convinced. Why don’t they go on TV and say ‘Hey, we’re sentient synths and we demand to be accepted’.”

            “Kia, it’s hard to explain but I’ve experienced a little bit of Wash’s memories – recollections brought about by being in a VR simulation with him. What I’ve seen…. The people that created Wash and the others are powerful – very powerful. Military equipment, military vehicles, military comms, hell, even the synths themselves are made of dazzlingly expensive shit. If the synths tried to reveal themselves, in those few hours where the BBC or ARD or RTVE were trying to decide whether or not to release the news, the people who built the synths would swoop in and capture them before the truth could get out. Even if any news website or broadcaster did get out, nobody would believe them because they no longer had any proof. In short, the synths are going to be hunted for the rest of their lives and I’m never going to see Wash again and-“

            “Woah, woah, okay,” Kai said, sliding off her swing to come over and place her hands reassuringly on Tucker’s shoulder. “Despair is not your friend.”

            Tucker took a moment to compose himself, letting out a shuddery breath that was one part anguish and another part anger – anger at the universe for taking shit away from him _again_.

            “Sorry.”

            “Buddy, it’s fine,” Kai said quietly, and Tucker could hear the faint lilt of her upbringing in America seeping into her voice. “I don’t…. I don’t know much about these synths, or what is happening, but Tucker, I like to see the bright side in humanity. I mean, there’s a lot of evil in the world, but also a lot of good. Good people will help your friends.”

            “I bloody hope so, Kai.”

            “Things will work out, somehow. They always do.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey everyone! Hope you enjoy this next chapter! My eternal thanks to everyone has left feedback, as ever! I love reading comments and the overall positive reaction to this fic is more than I could ever have anticipated!
> 
> I think it's worth giving a particular shout-out to CerealMonster, who has been helping me spot typos and give preliminary feedback for several chapters. It's been a great help, thank you! You can find them on Tumblr under the name "CerealMonster15"! Speaking of Tumblr, come and find me on there too as Oenotherax :D


	22. Chapter 22

            “You make a really good astronaut,” Tucker said, kissing his son’s head as Junior took off his big plastic helmet and came to sit next to his father on a low brick wall around the back of Wimbledon Primary School’s assembly hall. “I was really impressed.”

            “I wanted to be an alien,” Junior said sullenly. “Charlie got to be an alien.”

            “Well, I think you did a great job as an astronaut,” Tucker repeated. He wrapped an arm around Junior and gave him a squeeze, trying to avoid as much as possible damaging the numerous polystyrene bits and pieces that made up the components of the astronaut costume he wore.  

            “I only had three lines.”

            “Junior, when I was your age we did a play called ‘ _Rockpool Rap_ ’ about a clam named Clive who wanted to be a rockstar. I was ‘Second Rainbowfish’. Having to play ‘Hans the German Astronaut’ is nowhere near as bad as having to play ‘Second Rainbowfish’.”

            Junior let out a little giggle. “What did you have to say?”

            “Fuck knows…. I think something like ‘You can do anything Clive!’ It was hardly a BAFTA winning performance. Yours was much better – and you got to show off how well you can speak German!”

            Junior looked pleased with this. “Did you record it? So you could show Oma?”

            “I had Professor Emily record it, yes.” Tucker quickly put his finger to his lips. “Remember though that it’s copyrighted and you mustn’t say we recorded it to anyone, okay?”

            “Okay,” Junior, grinning conspiratorially.

            They sat together in the semi-darkness, listening to the sound of the final act of the school play happening from within the assembly hall in what Tucker had thought was comfortable silence, before he was abruptly aware that Junior was crying.

            “Kiddo?” Tucker said. It was difficult not to feel distressed upon seeing your own child weeping. “Oh champ, what’s the matter?”

            “I miss Mum,” Junior snivelled miserably.

            Tucker’s heart blistered with pain, but he ignored it, instead getting down on his knees on the tarmac in front of Junior and pulling out a clean handkerchief out of his pocket. He gave his son a sad smile as he began to dab Junior’s damp eyes.

            “I know, I miss her too – every day. Lavernius Tucker, she would have been really proud of you.”

            That comment only seemed to make Junior begin to cry harder.

            _God damn, I’m an awful parent._

            “It’s okay to cry,” Tucker said gently, “but your Mama would want to see you happy, wouldn’t she?”

            Junior buried his face in the white fabric, but Tucker saw him nod his head ever so slightly. “Yes,” came a muffled reply.

            “She would want to you to feel proud of doing your lines so well, and see you looking forward to the holidays and for Christmas, wouldn’t she? Do you think you could be happy, on her behalf?”

            Junior made a weak attempt to pull himself together, but he only wiped his eyes once or twice before he dissolved back into tears again.

            “Oh champ.”

            “I’m never going to see Mum again, and now I’m never going to see Wash again either.”

            Tucker gripped his son’s hand and rubbed it reassuringly. It took a moment to speak past the lump in his throat. “No, you aren’t going to see Mum again,” he said softly, “but she is at peace Junior, and we’ll always have her memory, won’t we? And Wash, well, Wash will come back.”

            “When?”

            Tucker took a deep breath. “I don’t know, Junior. But he will come back.”

            “I miss him too,” Junior wept. “I want him to come home again. Why did he have to leave?”

            “Wash had to leave because some bad people were after him,” Tucker reiterated, “but he will come back once he has hidden himself from the baddies.”

            “How?”

            “I don’t know,” Tucker admitted. “But I’m sure he’ll find a way.” This seemed to placate Junior, at least a little, and he dried his eyes with the handkerchief under Tucker’s encouraging smile. “You can show him the video of the play too, when we see him again!”

            “Okay,” Junior said weakly.

            “It’ll be fine. The play will be ending soon. Why don’t you go and join your friends?”

            “No!” Junior said at once, “They’ll see I’ve been crying.”

            “Pffft, what’s the matter with that? I cried over _Pan’s Labyrinth_ and I’m a grown-ass man.”

            “Okay,” Junior agreed, unconvinced.

            “Think of something you enjoyed doing with Wash?”

            “Huh?”

            “How did you enjoy spending time with him, champ?” Tucker repeated, smiling encouragingly.

            “We played Mario Kart together…”

            “Well, you now focus on how fun it is going to be playing Mario Kart with him when he comes back!”

            “Oh, Tucker, there you are!” came a voice, and Tucker turned his head to find Emily coming around the corner. She saw him kneeling in front of Junior and hesitated. “Ah, I’m not interrupting….?”

            Junior, clearly embarrassed at being seen being ‘babied’ by Tucker, scarpered back into the assembly hall building, leaving the two adults alone.

            “You’re not interrupting at all, don’t worry. Junior’s probably just feeling a little overwhelmed after his performance.”

            “I understand,” Emily nodded sympathetically, “Elouise was just the same about her ballet recital on Tuesday.”

            Tucker stood again, feeling a little stiff from squatting, and sat down where Junior had been sitting a moment before on the low brick wall. Emily came to sit next to him.

            “What stage is the play at?”

            “They’re wrapping up with a reprise of the final song and then everyone will be free to go. Are you helping backstage afterwards too?” Emily asked. She pulled out a mint from her pocket and offered it to Tucker, who smiled and accepted it.

            “Thanks. Nah, thankfully not, they only asked me to help with the lighting and that was it. Did you manage to get everything on camera?”

            Emily gave him a curiously playful grin, chewing on the mint as she did so. “Not necessarily on camera….”

            “How do you mean?”

            The professor tapped her face just next to her right eye. “You know those somatic computers and contact lenses that the Commission is lifting a moratorium on?” Tucker knew at least the basics of them. An OLED and sensory array built into an oxygen-permeable membrane allowed its user to effectively have a constant heads-up display. By beaming patterns directly onto the retina of the eye, it could produce an effect akin to something in a VR simulator. Floating boxes of text and images could be manipulated by voice commands and hand gestures, which the contact lenses registered and translated into commands.

            “Holy shit! You have some?”

            Emily smiled broadly and made some apparently random gestures in the air in front of her. A moment later, the phone in Tucker’s pocket buzzed. He pulled it out to see an image taken from Emily’s point of view a moment earlier on the lock screen.

            “How did you get access to these? They’re saying the queues for these things are going to be hours long when they go on sale,” Tucker said enviously. Privacy and security issues surrounding the technology had lead the Commission to delaying their approval to be sold by three months, and although the keenest tech-junkies simply imported theirs from Russia and the US, for most people Tuesday of that next week would be the first chance to get their hands on the augmentations.

            “Our department had early access to them – had the lenses installed yesterday!”

            “I’m envious,” Tucker laughed. “I think I’ll wait for those queues to die down before I get some myself though. I’m happy with my phone for now.”

            “They’re fantastically useful. In actual fact, I’ll demonstrate that fact by sending you something intended for your eyes,” Emily said, and once again quickly flicked her hands around in front of her, once again causing Tucker’s phone to buzz. When he picked it up, he found his grip suddenly tightening in surprise.

            It was a photo of himself and Wash.

            “Oh.”

            Emily, sensing the need for delicacy, became more pensive. “I was sending the last of my findings about the synth’s hardware the darknet IP address Carolina had provided me with when I had a return message.”

            Indeed, just below the image on Tucker’s phone was a little caption: ‘ _Thought Tucker might appreciate this. Don’t tell Lina I sent you this. Y.’_

“York?”

            “Seems like it.”

            The image was from a synth’s point of view certainly, probably straight out of their artificial eyes. Tucker recognised the setting as that of his own home – it must have been taken when the synths had gathered in his living room the same day Inspector Church had appeared. Tucker was laughing at something Wash had said, rolling his eyes ever so slightly, while Wash was looking bashful, and although Tucker couldn’t recall the moment, or think of what they had been saying to each other, his heart ached all the same.

            “It’s a really nice photo,” Emily commented.

            “Yeah, it is,” Tucker nodded, finally wrenching his eyes away from his phone to smile briefly at his friend. “It is. Although, it’s safe for me to keep it, isn’t it?”

            “I imagine so. It’s very heavily encrypted. Oh! And I got a later message saying that Wash wanted to know if you were looking after the cats….”

            Tucker chuckled. “If you get the chance to respond to that, then say ‘yes, Wash’s bloody ferals are fine.’”

            “What ferals?”

            “Did I not tell you about this? Wash lured a load of cats to our home with food and since he’s left it’s been up to me to feed them. If I don’t, they sit outside the utility room window and yowl until I come out with bowls of kibble. It’s costing me a fortune.”

            Emily giggled. “I feel like him looking after cats is a good sign that these AI aren’t planning world domination. There were some journal articles published recently investigating the subject in actual fact.”

            “I don’t know Emily, Hitler loved dogs…” Tucker said wryly.

            “I know, but it implies he’s a decent chap, anyway. Wash that is, not Hitler.”

            Tucker looked down at the image on his phone again and looked at it for a long time before saying anything further. “It’ll be nice to have something of him. He was so paranoid of face-recognition software setting off alarms that he never appeared in any photos we took. Junior will be pleased.”

            “How’s Junior holding up?”

            Tucker sighed. “He wasn’t just crying for the sake of it earlier. He was getting weepy about his mum and now Wash leaving too.”

            Emily made clicking noise with her tongue and she reached out to put a gentle grip on Tucker’s wrist. “I’m sorry. It must be no fun for either of you.”

            “We’ll survive. Grey, I need to tell you something.”

            “What?”

            Tucker sucked in a deep breath, and gently eased his arm out of her grasp. “I feel bad, but I told a friend of mine about Wash.”

            For some reason, Tucker thought that she would be spitting mad, but when she took a moment to absorb this information before nodding, he appreciated that she must be feeling just the same as he had done. 

            “I’ve within a hair of doing the same on multiple occasions,” Emily admitted. “There’s just…. there’s so much _research_ to discuss. I want to share my discoveries with the world – to make this information available for everyone. Having all this data sitting on my computer – again, heavily encrypted – yet being unable to disseminate it with my colleagues is almost unbearable.”

            “You’re stronger than I have been then. I just told this friend because I was being a sad drunk,” Tucker said a little ruefully.

            “You trust them?”

            “Absolutely.”

            Emily nodded. “Then we don’t have a problem.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey everyone! Sorry for the fairly short chapter today but I've been racing ahead with writing other parts of the fic whilst also having uni work to do. Next chapter shouldn't take too long to be published however, on the plus side!


	23. Chapter 23

            Tucker let out a little yelp as Donut appeared from nowhere and promptly slapped Tucker’s hand away from his face.

            “Don’t scratch!” the man scolded, falling into step with Tucker as they walked up the busy London street the optometrist had been located on.

            “But they’re itchy as hell! And those little speaker pads in my ears feel weird.” Tucker whined, blinking furiously. “These bloody contacts better be worth it, honestly.”

            “Of course they are!” Jensen exclaimed keenly, overhearing the pairs’ conversation a little way in front where she was walking alongside Simmons. “I might as well have been dead before I had these. Also, once your OS has set itself up, be sure to go into your somatic computer’s programme files and delete-“

            “Okay Jensen,” Tucker said hurriedly before the woman started spouting an endless stream of I.T. knowledge, “Just message me the instructions so I don’t forget.”

            “Will do!” Jensen replied cheerily and returned to whatever nerdy subject she had been discussing with Simmons a moment previous.       

            “She’s right, they are really useful,” Donut nodded.

            “Don’t you worry about the whole privacy issues? Like, someone could literally take a video of you at any time. You can’t tell they are doing so. Your ONS could be videoing you during sex and you wouldn’t even know, and then they could put it on some porn site.”

            “My, how you’ve changed Tucker!” Donut said, theatrically putting his hand to his throat.

            Tucker turned to the man, who grinned amusedly. “When I first met you, the prospect of endless streams of ‘illicitly recorded POV porn’ on the internet would have had you salivating at the mouth!”

            “That is an exaggeration!” Tucker said defensively, although not particularly whole-heartedly. “I don’t know, maybe I’m getting old and my libido is dying. Plus, Junior is just reaching that age where he’s beginning to ask where babies are from and what crude words he’s heard from friends mean…. Having a kid sort of changes your view of that sort of media.”

            Donut dipped his head in acknowledgement. “I understand. I’m pretty sure the privacy issues won’t be too much of a big deal in honesty. Hidden cameras are already everywhere, and you can hack synths to transmit their visual feeds. Laws are in place and the police do arrest people for stuff like revenge porn.”

            “But still, mate, the whole sex thing….”

            “Why are you hung up on that? Frank and I film ourselves-“

            “ _Right_ , moving swiftly on.”

            “You’ve become such a prude!”

            Tucker reflected on that. Really, it wasn’t to do with having his junk on a porn site _per se_ , (in fact, that kind of voyeurism still was kind of kinky to him) but the prospect of his junk being seen by someone he knew.

            Namely Wash.

            _Why would Wash be going on a porn site anyway? Did sentient AIs even experience sexual attraction, or the urge to get their rocks off? Why would it matter if he saw some video a woman had taken of himself mid-coitus? It wasn’t like either of them were together, let alone exclusive._

“Hello?” Donut repeated, waving his hand in front of Tucker’s face. “Earth to Tucker?”

            “Oh, huh. Look, I’m not a prude, I just _really_ don’t want to think about you and Doc getting frisky with each other. How is Doc anyway?”

            Donut’s eyes lost their focus in a now-familiar fashion, and lovey-dovey smile of contentment spread across his visage. “Oh, just great, thank you.”

            “Got any plans for Christmas?”

            “Not Christmas, but for New Year’s we’re flying out to Prague and spending a week in this little apartment we’ve found on AirBNB. It’s so romantic, right in the centre of the old city…”

            “Sounds great!” Tucker agreed, pleased for his friend, but somewhat troubled. Donut, astute when it came to others’ emotions, detected this.

            “How about yourself? Are you going away with Junior like you usually do for New Year’s?”

            “Yeah, probably.”

            “Any ideas about where you are staying? Norfolk? Cornwall? Cumbria?” Donut pressed, trying to get Tucker to be a little more forthcoming.

            “I don’t know. I’m going to my parents on the 25th but I still haven’t made any plans for New Year’s. I should have booked somewhere weeks earlier – all the holiday cottages have probably been taken by now.”

            “Hmmm,” Donut agreed. “Tucker, are you _sure_ you’re okay? Like, you’ve always been organised with your holidays. I’m always here if you need-“

            “We’ve discussed this,” Tucker said sharply. “Donut, I’m good.”

            “Is one of your parents ill? Is Junior being bullied? I only ask because I’m concerned.”

            “Donut!”

            “Okay, okay,” the man replied a little sulkily. “I’ll respect your privacy.”

            “Please,” Tucker said huffily. He pushed away the pang of guilt he felt for lying to one friend and yet having told another the very secret that was bothering him so greatly.

            _I can’t tell everyone. Telling Kai was a mistake, but I can’t change that now. None of the others have to know about Wash._

“Hey, what’s going on up ahead?” Donut suddenly said, and Tucker was intensely relieved at the change in conversation.

            The optometrist Tucker had visited for the five minute procedure where they placed the bionic lenses on his eyes was located on a little to the north of Trafalgar Square, and now as they approached the square in order to get to tube station, it was increasingly apparent that a large crowd had gathered, waiting for something to happen. Although the place was always fairly busy with visitors and tourists that had come to see Nelson’s Column and the National Gallery, people seemed to be deliberately stopping and waiting at the road sides.

            “Huh, look, they’ve got steel barriers up.”

            “Are the big cheeses from Brussels paying a visit? Is there some foreign leader coming today?” Jensen wondered.

            There was a moment where everyone asked either vocally asked their computers or typed out the question using a virtual keyboard. His own contact lenses still were not done setting themselves up, so patiently waited for someone to fill him in with the details.

            “’ _Deputy Prime Minister and Commissioner for Health leads motorcade to mark 15 th anniversary of Middle East Crisis_,” Donut read aloud. “Huh, looks like it’s some ceremony to commemorate British soldiers who had died back then.”

            “Yeah, they must be heading to the cenotaph.” Simmons commented.

            Although originally aiming for Charing Cross, they were now caught up in the flow of people all eager to see the autos drive past containing dignitaries and veterans, and Tucker and his friends ended up near one of the barriers on the southern edge of the square, able to see a little way down Whitehall with Big Ben just visible in the distance.

            “This is quite exciting,” Jensen said, her lisp becoming more pronounced with her enthusiasm. “I didn’t know this was happening at all.”

            “I don’t imagine it’s as busy as it gets on Remembrance Sunday,” Donut noted.

            “Still a police presence,” Simmons noted, and indeed he was right. Tucker spotted two mounted police a little way up the road.

            And then, Tucker noticed someone standing in the crowd on the other side of the street, their face just visible in the throng. 

            It was a woman, around his age, and in her face, Tucker could see Wash.

            She had the same shape and positioning of the cheekbones, the same heavy brow, the same length and definition of the jaw. Her hair was a different colour from Washs; red instead of blonde; but Tucker knew that the person he was looking at was a relation. She even held herself in the same way: that upright, challenging posture that dared an onlooker to cross them.

            And knowing that Wash could have a _relative_ , an AI Tucker had always imagined had been immaculately conceived by scientists in a laboratory, was a terrible revelation indeed.

            The woman, with a final glance down towards the Cenotaph, turned away and vanished.

            Tucker began to move, pushing through the crowd himself. “Excuse me! Excuse me please! It’s urgent….!”

            “Watch where you’re going!” some man called from behind him, which Tucker ignored. He bounced up and down, trying to see over people’s bodies.

            “Tucker?” he heard one of his friends call from behind him, alarmed by him suddenly disappearing.

            He had no time to stop and think. Every second passed would be a second in which the woman could get further away. He pushed his way to the barrier and, as quickly as he could in the tight space, climbed over it.

            The action was immediately followed by shouts of anger or alarm in all directions: from onlookers up and down both sides of the street and from police officers on the road, waiting for dignitaries to arrive. Tucker didn’t care. He had to see who that woman was; how on earth she could look so similar to the synth who had lived in his home, been his friend.

            A doubtful voice piped up in his head before he had even reached the other side. _It could mean nothing. They have to get the faces of synths from somewhere after all. What if they just scanned the face from the brother, father or son of this woman? Selling appearances to synth manufactures isn’t unheard of._

The people on the other side of the road, pressed against the barrier, were displeased. Some even tried to force him back, to delay him until the police running up the road could catch and arrest him.

            “Please, my son! My son has gone missing and I just saw him!” Tucker said, lying wildly and stabbing his finger towards the crowd.

            It had the desired effect. Concern rippled through the surrounding cluster of people, and they backed away, allowing Tucker to tumble over the barrier and start pushing his way through the crowd.

            Even when he had wormed his way out of the crush and into the more open sections of pavement, the street remained maddeningly busy.

            Tucker stood rotating on the spot, despairing that he had lost the woman in the crowds, but then there was a flash of ginger hair in the distance, heading northwards in the direction Tucker and the others had just come from. He broke into a run immediately, weaving between other members of the public like a skier slaloming between trees.

            “Wait!” he called out, but of course he didn’t know her name, and she didn’t turn at first. She was finely dressed, he noticed, wearing a suit and heavy black woollen coat.  

            “Wait, excuse me!”

            She glanced back this time, as many others did, and he waved at her frantically.

            “Can I help you?” the woman called back, wary at the sight of this stranger chasing after her.

            The resemblance grew stronger with every stride of Tucker’s legs. A sense of unreality descended over him. “Excuse me, I think….” Tucker said, before realising he had no plan about how to speak to her. “I think….. I know a relative of yours.”

            The woman pursed her lips, uneasy. “Would you happen to know who this relative might be?”

            “Do you know someone called…. I…. uh…. Wash? I mean, that’s not his name-“

            “I’m sorry,” the woman said. She held a black, matte suitcase made from what looked distastefully like actual leather in one hand, and she used it to indicate in the direction of travel. “I really am busy. I do not know who this person you are talking about might be. I don’t know any ‘Wash’s’.”

            She turned, and Tucker plunged his hand into his pocket and pulled out his phone so quickly that he nearly dropped it against the paving slabs. “Please, just let me show you-“

            “I’m sorry-“

            “Here!” Tucker said, pulling up the photo he wanted and thrusting it at her.

            Her narrowed eyes, just beginning to betray the first signs of anger or fear, became slack, and then wide, as her mind processed what she was seeing.

            Neither of them spoke for a long time; leaving the sound of cars passing and chatter and the footfalls of the people around them as the only other things to hear.

            The woman had closed her eyes for a long period before opening them again. “You knew David?”

            “David?” Tucker repeated. His throat felt dry and tight, as if he had been eating sand. He swallowed, before forming an appropriate lie. “Yes, I knew him. We were at university together. Are you a relation?”

            “His sister.” The woman opened her eyes again, and they were filled with tears. She scrubbed hastily at her eyes with her sleeve. “I’m sorry, it’s just…. god. That photo looks as if it had been taken yesterday.”

            Some part of his brain was screaming at him to stop this conversation now and return to Wimbledon, to the safety of his normal life and the ignorance that entailed. “What…. What happened?” he asked breathlessly.

            “You didn’t know?”

            “I’m afraid not, I…. I only was friends with him briefly.”

            The woman abruptly turned. “I’m sorry, he died.”

            “ _What?_ Wait!”

            The woman’s voice became louder, fiercer. “I don’t want to talk about this.”

            “No, wait! Please, if you could give me some more details?” Tucker implored, hurrying after her. “This is important.”

            “I fail to see how that would be the case.”

            “I… Look, did your brother ever sell his appearance to a synthetic manufacturer?”

            The woman ignored him, turning away.

            “Please!”

            “Please!” the woman echoed, her voice rough with anger and grief. It was loud enough to almost have been shouted, and Tucker could feel the gaze of those around them on his skin. “If you do not leave me alone…. I’ll… call the police. I don’t want to talk about David.”

            And with that, the woman turned her back to Tucker and was swallowed by the crowd.

 

 

            The others found him five minutes later, having to have run up the road to find a set of traffic lights they could cross at before seeking out where Tucker had run off to.

            “Tucker, there you are! What on earth did you run off like that for?” Donut exclaimed. “You gave us all a terrible fright, we’d thought you would be arrested! Are you okay? You look terrible!”

            Tucker felt terrible. He had found a low stone wall to sit on, and had been blankly staring off at the rooftops of the building on the other side of the street, helplessly trying to make sense of what he had just seen.

            _That woman’s brother must have sold his appearance to a synth manufacturer. That’s all. That’s it. An AI can’t have flesh and blood relatives. It’s impossible._

“I’m fine,” Tucker replied unsteadily. “I…. just thought I saw an old flame.”

            _It’s impossible. Wash can’t have human relatives. It’s impossible. It’s just a horrible coincidence; a mistake on the woman’s part; a visual and auditory hallucination of yours._

“God, you really need a girlfriend,” Simmons remarked, annoyed. “How thirsty do you have to be?”

            “Simmons!” Donut said, appalled. “Tactless!”

            “I don’t go racing off after old girlfriends and leaving my friends to wonder what the hell is going on!”

            “That’s because you don’t have any old girlfriends,” Jensen said lightly.

            Donut let out a peal of laughter. “Wow Jensen, that was savage. Look, Tucker, are you _quite_ alright?”

            “He’s fine!” Simmons groaned unsympathetically.

            “I’m fine,” Tucker agreed. His brain felt like it was beginning to function rationally again, and obvious courses of action were beginning to make themselves apparent. “But, I really need to call someone, if you don’t mind?”

            “Not to the old flame?” Donut said, raising an eyebrow. “Tucker, just speaking from experience, meeting up with old flames rarely is a cheery experience, despite what Hollywood and Paris want you to believe.”

            “No, no…. someone else. I’ll be two minutes, I promise.”

            “Okay….”

            Tucker walked a short distance down the pavement from the rest of them. It was at the moment he put his hand into his pocket to pull out his phone did he realise that a small hovering symbol was floating in the sky about an arm’s length from his eye. The contact lenses had finalised their configuration without him even realising.

            “Android, ring Dr Emily Grey,” Tucker said aloud, feeling self-conscious about speaking to seemingly no one despite having seen countless other people do exactly that in the days since the augmentations had been released on the market.

            The little flexible computer, barely weighing a five grams, that was lightly adhered to the back of his right ear, heard his command, and the miniature speakers placed in the inside of each of his ears began to play a dialling tone.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Feedback welcomed and appreciated as ever! Cannot believe how well received this fic has been - I'm infinitely grateful and constantly surprised whenever I see the kudos it has received! 
> 
> I'd like to briefly say thank you to my temporary beta reader LittleFists who is covering for CerealMonster15 while she is unavailable :)


	24. Chapter 24

_‘New Zealand and Australia agree to fiscal union by 2045.’_

_‘Nicki Minaj at 50: singer releases new album: Half Century Bad Bitch’_

_‘Seychelles evacuation struck by further delays.’_

_‘Huawei reveals premium smartlenses in Beijing.’_

_‘John Lewis Christmas advert accused by UKIP of being federal propaganda.’_

Tucker irritably swiped away the news feed hovering in his vision with a flick of his hand, finding no entertainment at reading through the headlines. Of all the other people with him in the auto as it drove them home from the company conference in St Albans, only Simmons noticed. This was unsurprising, as Donut was having an elongated and innuendo-filled call to Doc, Jensen and Palomo were having their usual rambling, awkward chats that were filled with sexual tension, Bitters had fallen asleep the moment he had settled in his seat and Caboose was preoccupied playing Pokémon. Simmons, without Grif to constantly squabble with, was clearly itching to chat.

            “What’s up?”

            “The sky,” Tucker replied grumpily.

            Simmons rolled his eyes. “Witty.”

            “I live to please.”

            Simmons indicated with the thumb towards the back windscreen. “How did you think the conference went?”

            Tucker shrugged, giving himself a little shake to try and shed his moodiness. “Brief and to the point; the way I like the things. It is a little strange seeing all our Continental brethren though.”

            “The people from the French and Slovenian offices? How so?”

            “Reminds me how big the company is. Feels a little strange that Kimball comes and has drinks with us lowly plebs when she’s such a big cheese in the energy industry.”

            “Eh, she’s not the type to sit in some stuffy office and not have any friends,” Simmons said, shrugging. “And altogether she’s pretty chilled when it comes to our jobs. Grif’s said some outrageous things in front of her and she hasn’t gotten all pissy like some bosses would have done.”

            “It’s because she knows how valuable Grif’s unprofessional yet strangely charming social media comments is good for the company’s public image,” Tucker said, his corners of his mouth quirking up for a moment before his expression returned to a slight frown. “I’m not sure if I could get away with the same.”

            “You’re not still worried about your job, are you?”

            “Why would anything have gotten better?” Tucker sighed. “Synths are only getting better at doing my job, not worse.”

            “Kimball will always want a human engineer on hand, trust me,” Simmons said, nudging his despondent friend’s leg with his own. “Cheer up, it’ll be fine.”

            “I’m a dying breed, Simmons, a dying breed. I’m like an old horse that will soon be put out to pasture,” Tucker lamented melodramatically.

            “Well, so have millions of others,” Simmons pointed out, “so you’re in good company. Besides, if it makes you feel better, with the rate AI management bots are going, my job is going to be taken over by robots too and I’ll be made redundant.”

            “I’m not sure how an eventuality where Grif has a job and neither of do is meant to make me feel better,” Tucker said. “Speaking of, how is life ‘sans-Grif’?”

            Simmons chuckled. “Same as it is every year. Bliss.”

            Tucker raised an eyebrow. “You don’t miss him at all….?”

            This only elicited a groan from the other man. “Oh my god, stop it! Me and Grif don’t have some sort of ‘thing’ going on…”

            Tucker raised his hands innocently. “I’m not implying anything! I was just wondering how your bromance was going…”

            “Yes you are implying something and you know it.”

            Dr Grey’s face suddenly appeared in the top right hand corner of his vision, accompanied by a green telephone symbol.

            “Oh, sorry, incoming call, do you mind if I take this? It’s, uh, urgent.”

            “By all means…” Simmons said, pouting ever so slightly.  

            “Accept call,” Tucker said.

            “Hey Tucker,” Emily’s voice came, bright and clear over the microspeakers in Tucker’s ear. “I hope I’m not interrupting.”

            “No, just on my way back into London with some friends.”

            Tucker heard the professor make a ‘hmm’ noise with her mouth ever so slightly. “You aren’t alone?”

            “Sorry, no. Look, without saying too much, have you found anything?”

            There was the sound of papers being shuffled on the other end. Tucker didn’t know why the professor seemed to have so many printed copies of things in this day and age of laptops, tablets and bionic lenses. “Nothing conclusive. Your lenses came up blank – the camera still wasn’t operating at the time you bumped into this woman. However, I think I may have found about six or seven individuals who match the description.” Emily’s voice sounded faintly strained.

            “Can you send photos of them to me?” Tucker inquired at once. He had to consciously stop himself from jittering his legs up and down in anticipation.

            “Are you on encrypted wifi?”

            “No, I’m on mobile.”

            “Let’s arrange to meet. Somewhere secluded, perhaps not the lab.”

            “Not the lab? What’s wrong with your lab?”

            “I…. look…. I can’t say anymore,” Emily said tersely. “I’ll message you a time and a date.”

            “Emily,” Tucker cut across her, “are you safe? What’s changed?”

            The sounds on the other end of the line quietened, and Emily’s voice dropped. “I’m fine. I just…. I think other members of the faculty are growing suspicious.”

            Tucker was about to say something else, but he became aware the others were all suddenly alert and looking about. “Emily, bear with me for a moment?” he said, before lowing the volume of the speakers.

            The auto, which had previously been silently cruising along the smooth tarmac of the A5183, was now beginning to bump and judder, and the sound of pops and cracks could be heard as the machine’s tyres rumbled over loose stones.

            “Huh?” Palomo said, “Why are we driving on gravel?”

            “Honey, I’ll call you back,” Donut was saying, and dismissed the call from his own lenses. “Has someone entered the wrong destination on the navigation system?”

            “Tucker?” Emily said, muted, from the other end of the line. “Is something the matter?”

            Since human driving had been banned, the fact that autos didn’t need bright light to drive by had essentially rendered all overhead streetlights on non-pedestrian roads obsolete. The only way of telling if you were a major road was by either looking at the console, which Simmons was doing now, or by looking out for the light of other autos.

            Tucker couldn’t see any other autos.

            “The console is frozen,” Simmons said a fraction of a second later. “It says we are still back in St Albans.”

            “Auto, respond,” Palomo tried, still relatively unconcerned by this turn of events. When there was no response, he wiggled a finger at the base of the screen. “Must have glitched out. This happens to my mum’s old auto back in Calabria occasionally. Try a hard reset.”

            “Where’s it taking us?” Donut said. “This is creepy. Oh, if it’s broken I’m going to be mad! I said to Frank I’d be home in time for dinner and _Gordon Ramsey’s Kitchen Nightmares_.”

            “Tucker?” Emily repeated, a little impatiently.

            Tucker quickly notched up the volume of the call again. “Sorry Emily, something’s gone wrong with our auto. It’s taken us into the middle of nowhere.”

            The professor was silent for a moment. “I see.”

            “Auto, respond. Off. Disable driving. Stop,” Palomo continued fruitlessly.

            “Does this thing even have a hard reset button?” Simmon’s said, feeling around the edge of the console. “I can’t find anything.”

            “Is that it?” Jensen said, pointing to a smaller button.

            Simmons jabbed the little button with his index finger, to no effect. “Nope.”

            Caboose was picking up in the atmosphere now, and was beginning to glance around nervously at the other passengers. “Why is the auto not working?”

            “We don’t know, Caboose,” Jensen said. “I – oh! Okay, I just lost service.”

            Half a second later, Grey’s floating image in Tucker’s own vision suddenly flashed red. _No service. Connection lost._

            “Yep, me too.”

            “Same,” Simmons said uneasily.

            “Are we all on different providers? I’m on Vodafone.”

            “I’m on EE… so it’s not a network thing.”

            The auto began to slow on the gravel.

            _I’m sure it’s nothing_ , Tucker said to himself, but failing to believe it. Instead, taking deep, slow breaths to calm himself, he focussed his attention on doing something useful. He reached out and opened the door.

            At once the auto skidded to a stop, the manual override mechanism in the door applying the brakes. Thankfully everyone inside was sensible enough to be wearing seatbelts, even though the sudden deceleration was enough to make Jensen and Palomo very nearly smack their heads into one another.

            “Jeez, warn us before doing that will you?” Simmons moaned as Tucker pushed the door open, unbuckled himself from the seat and stepped outside to have a look at where they were.

            They seemed to have stopped in a narrow country lane, albeit one not far from the constant roar of the M25. This was reassuring, as not being far from the orbital motorway meant they hadn’t been taken very far off course. The air smelt pleasantly of damp vegetation and rain.

            There didn’t appear to be anything or anybody about.

            “Any luck?” Simmons called from inside the auto. “I don’t understand how there could be a coverage dead-zone so close to London…? It doesn’t make any sense.”

            Tucker was about to get back into the car when he heard footsteps on the gravel ahead of them.

            The footsteps were coming towards them.

            “Tucker? Any indication of where we are?” Donut called from inside the car.

            “Hello?” Tucker called out into the darkness. He couldn’t see anyone.

            “Hello?” Simmons echoed, confused. “Yes, we can hear you.”

            Tucker’s throat was dry. “There’s someone coming towards us.” He pulled out his phone, which had remained relatively abandoned in his pocket for the past day and a half since getting his contacts, and turned on its torch function.

            Tucker jumped as only about fifteen metres way was a man, walking with long strides. Tucker knew him at once as the police officer who had spoken with him several weeks ago.

            Inspector Church.

            “Good evening, Mr Tucker,” the police officer said. Tucker couldn’t determine of the man sounded bored, angry or unhappy. He was dressed differently now, not in a police officer’s uniform but in smart, dark chinos, a pale shirt and elegant black coat.

            Donut popped his head of the car and ogled at the man. “Oh my god! Who are you?”

            “Inspector Church of the Metropolitan Police Force. I am investigating a minor crime to which Mr Tucker here was a witness. I would just like to speak to him privately for fifteen minutes if possible. I'm parked 500 metres down the lane.”

            “What?” Donut said, taken aback, whipping his head around to stare at Tucker. “What crime, Tucker?”

             Caboose and Simmons appeared. “What the fuck is happening?”

            “Tucker,” the Inspector repeated impatiently, indicating with his head in the direction from which he had come.

            _Church fucking knows about the synths. He must do. I have no other choice to come with him – not without otherwise endangering Donut and Simmons and Caboose and the others._

            “I…. okay, right. Guys, it’s fine, I’ve spoken to Inspector Church before.”

            “Are you sure?”

            “It’ll be fine. I’ll be back in a quarter of an hour.”

             He began to walk after Church, glancing back once to see his friend’s fearful faces illuminated by the light spilling out of their auto.

 

             Neither of them spoke as they walked down the lane. Tucker, in truth, wasn’t sure if he had the courage to speak - he felt so lightheaded at being threatened by someone with a gun at his belt that he felt that the slightest bit of intimidation by Inspector Church would leave him slumped on the ground. A variety of scenarios ran through his head about what was going to happen as the gravel crunched underfoot.

            _Are they going to torture me for information about where Wash and the other synths are? What if they already_ have _Wash?_

After what felt like a lot further than only 500 metres, and just as Tucker felt the first drops of rain, they turned a corner in the lane to find a large, very expensive looking black Volvo SUV, the sort you saw driving around the affluent areas of Surrey and Berkshire by people who read _Country Life_ and had children called Titus and Xanthe. Its windows were tinted, but enough light was filtering through them for Tucker to make out the ring of twelve gold stars painted on the auto’s doors.

            “The government?” Tucker said aloud, not sure whether to cry with relief or be horrified. “You work for the government?”

            “That’s right,” Inspector Church said, opening one of the rear doors. “The Commissioner will explain inside.”

            “ _Commissioner?”_

            “That would be me,” came a voice. Tucker, blinking at the bright light, looked inside the auto to see a handsome, clean-shaven older man with sandy-blonde hair, in his late forties or fifties perhaps, wearing a suit and holding out his hand. “My name is Donald Doyle, European Union High Commissioner of Synthetics, Energy and Advanced Technologies. Pleased to meet you.”

            “Ah…. Right…. Okay…”

            Tucker, lacking any other option, stepped up inside the auto, shaking the man’s hand as he did so. The vehicle was spacious inside, with two pairs of comfortable ivory-coloured seats facing each other. Tucker sat down opposite the Commissioner and the Inspector, suddenly feeling, if not quite relief, a good deal less afraid. That fear had been replaced by something akin to indignation.

            “Look, I’m all for politicians making an effort to meet the people they represent but I’d rather _not_ have my auto hijacked and taken to some isolated lane in the middle of nowhere to do so.”

            Doyle smiled almost meekly. “Church here wanted to take some extra precautions.” His accent was that of the stereotypical member of the upper echelons of British society: clipped Received Pronunciation.

            The Inspector – or whatever job he had, Tucker was no longer sure – nodded stiffly, and continued to frown at the rain scudding down the auto’s windows.

            There was a pause.

            “Look, what do you want from me, Commissioner?” Tucker eventually asked, his voice blunt. “Let’s not waste each other’s time here.” Exchanging pleasantries and making chit-chat were not high on his list of priorities.

            Doyle glanced at Church before continuing. “You own a synthetic that goes by the name of ‘Wash’. We know he is an advanced AI capable of passing any Turing Test one could think to throw at him. We know he is part of a larger group of escaped AIs, all of whom have military-level technology used in their physical bodies.”

            Tucker’s blood was running cold through his veins. “I don’t know what you are talking about,” he said hoarsely.           

            “We don’t give a shit what you claim to know,” Church interrupted. “We know these facts to be true.”

            “I won’t tell you where they are.”

            “We aren’t asking you for that,” Doyle said firmly. “That is not our goal, not at least until we discover some other crucial details first.”

            Tucker’s eyes flickered towards the doors. If he tried to escape, would he be able to make it?

            _Church looks muscular. I’d have a better chance overpowering Doyle_.

            “It’s not worth considering,” Church said, his voice surly.

            “Huh?”

            “Don’t run. I’d only catch you and have to drag you back,” the man said, guessing Tucker’s thoughts.

            Doyle cleared his throat. “Mr Tucker here is our _guest_ , Mr Church. We treat him as such. Mr Tucker, let me explain to you the necessity of speaking to you in person, in private,” Doyle said calmly. “Needless to say, the Commission and the Council of Europe is greatly alarmed by these reports of rogue, sentient synthetics. They’ve been deemed a potential Union-wide threat. I, alongside my colleagues in Europol, am in charge of discovering who created them, why they were created and what their intentions are.”

            Tucker alternated between wanting to be furious and wanting to beg the Commissioner for help. “I….. Wash and the others, they do _not_ pose a threat to anyone. They just want to find out who created them, and then live their own lives without interference.”

            Doyle gave him a level look. “And how do you know for certain they do not pose a threat to anyone?”

            “You know that one of them has lived with me. I trust him. He’s a good man…. uh…  I mean, robot. He speaks and acts like any decent human would.”

            “And yet you do not know how he _thinks_ , and that is the dangerous unknown in this equation,” Doyle said.

            Tucker spoke quickly before the man could continue. “Do you have a wife, Commissioner?”

            Doyle raised his eyebrows. “Indeed I do…?”

            “Do you know what she thinks? No? Well, of course not, because none of us can read minds, but I assume you don’t think your own wife could be a threat to society just because of that. Ultimately it is only by our actions we can be measured and all that shit.”

            “Poetic,” Church drawled.

            Tucker grimaced, although for some reason wanted to chuckle at that remark. “A-Level Philosophy. It was the dossy subject at my school.”

            The Commissioner dipped his head in acknowledgement. “While what you say is true, and I can understand where you are coming from, Mr Tucker, we can put trust in other humans because we know that they follow the same biological blueprint as our own, and they are not likely to stray from that. With AIs, they follow no such blueprint. We cannot assume the morality and other universalities found within people are going to be found within AI.”

            “So, what, your solution is just to eradicate these rogue synths the moment Union forces get their hands on them?” Tucker demanded.

            Doyle looked offended by this notion. “Absolutely not. I only argue that your testimony alone cannot alone prove that these synths are not a threat to Europe. We need to speak to them in person and have access to snapshots of their CPU states and memory.”

            “You want me to persuade them to agree to meet you,” Tucker said, understanding.

            The Commissioner waggled a finger at Tucker. “Exactly! Well, not me, the EU Synthetic Agency to be precise.”

            “Why on earth would they ever agree to speak to the Agency?” Tucker said critically. “They don’t know who is pursuing them. They would just assume that they are being hunted by the government itself, and that this is just all one elaborate trap.”

            Doyle unexpectedly chuckled. “I think you have a bit too much faith in the efficiency and speed of Brussels if you think the EU did this. No, tell your friends Mr Tucker that they were most definitely created by a private entity, and we are just as keen to discover who or what that entity is as much as they are.”

            Tucker snorted, leaning back in the seat. “So, what, that’s what I tell them? That they have your word? That isn’t very reassuring.”

            “’Love all, but trust a few,’ to quote the Bard himself. I’m afraid in this situation, you and your friends’ trust will have to extend to myself and my colleagues if they wish to get a satisfactory resolution to this issue,” Doyle said, and Tucker wondered if that had meant to be a very gentle threat. He couldn’t think of any reasonable reply to it.

            “I see.”

            His lenses told him he had an incoming email with a file attached.

            “My contact details. I split my time between Brussels and London, so arranging another meeting should not be difficult. Think about what myself and Church have said, Mr Tucker."

            Realising it was time for him to leave, Tucker shuffled along to the door, which Church opened and went out of first. “I don’t think I’m going to _not_ think about this exchange considering kidnapping isn’t exactly a regular experience for me.”

            Doyle smiled. “Goodbye, Mr Tucker.”

            The door to the auto closed, leaving Tucker and Church in the gloom.

            Tucker refocussed his attention to the other man as they began to walk back down the lane. “Wasn’t it a bit stupid to do this when all my friends were about? They will have endless questions. What am I going to say to them?”

            Another new email notification blinked in the corner of Tucker’s vision.

            “Were you busy last Wednesday?”

            “I imagine you already know the answer to that question.”

            Church’s mouth quirked up, the first sign Tucker had seen that the man had a sense of humour after all. “There was a mugging near Chelsea last Wednesday of minor league footballer, Bron Czajkowski. Claim you witnessed someone running off from the scene.”

            “And what, just expect them to believe that? No police officer tracks down witnesses the way you supposedly just did.”

            Church’s expression hardened again. “Make them believe it. Say there was no other time I could interview you.”

            “Couldn’t you have just come to my home? Prevented this whole palaver in the first place?"

            “I fear the European Union isn’t the only one keeping an eye on you, Mr Tucker,” Church rumbled, and suddenly the air around them felt much colder.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for all the feedback as ever! Sorry, I've been a little busy recently so I haven't had a chance to get back to some of your latest comments but I will soon!


	25. Chapter 25

            Tucker jogged to a halt at the summit of a low hill, panting hard, and was rewarded with a view of the city just as it was beginning to wake up.

            It was six in the morning. An hour earlier, tired and angry at his body for once again waking him up at four in the morning without apparent reason and then refusing to allow him to get back to sleep again, Tucker had donned his running gear and had taken an auto through the quiet streets to Reagent’s Park. Although strictly speaking he wasn’t allowed to have left Junior home alone, Tucker knew his son wasn’t going to be up for another hour anyway and the houses’ computer was set to its maximum safety and security settings. He needed to get out of the house and clear his head.

            Tucker’s friends, predictably, had been barely legible with anxiety by the time he had returned to the auto the evening previous. Convinced that Inspector Church was not a legitimate member of the Met and unable to call for help, Simmons had raced off to try and find signal or a landline phone – which ever he came across first, only to be summoned back once everyone’s collective signal returned, conveniently, at the same time Tucker himself reappeared. He had tried to run with the story that he had witnessed a serious crime, but nobody believed him, and eventually he could only acknowledge something was going on that he could not tell them and suffer through their disapproving silence the rest of the way home. Dr Grey had also called several times, but Tucker had only sent her the most perfunctory message assuring her that it was just a service outage and that he would talk tomorrow. He was done thinking and talking about Wash.

            Nearby was a wooden bench, illuminated in the diffuse glow of an overhead lamp, and against his better judgement because he would probably not want to get up again, Tucker sat heavily. Resting his arms on his thighs, he gazed out at the dark cityscape. The roads were just beginning to come to life as the city’s traffic management AI began to wake up sleeping autos in their municipal carparks on the outskirts of the city and distribute them in anticipation of the first early-morning commuters. Skyscrapers too were beginning to light up as swarms of cleaner synths set about vacumming, wiping down and dusting every inch of exposed surfaces their algorithms could detect. After the turmoil of much of the 2020s with synths and AI and autos driving nearly half of the population of the population out of work, the economy had finally stabilised, and with it a veritable forest of new buildings were sprouting across the city, most trying to be even more unique and spectacular than the last. Tucker, looking at this glowing forest of tall buildings, had not quite decided if he liked this new development.

            “Hey, do you mind if I sit down here?”

            Tucker jumped violently, unaware that he was no longer alone in the gloom of the empty park. “Oh!”

            “Sorry!” said the man who had appeared. “I didn’t mean to sneak up on you like that.”

            Tucker eyed the man, wary of the sudden stranger, but he seemed harmless enough. He was tall and athletic, and of Asian descent like Emily, although probably more from Indonesia or the Philippines than from Japan or China. He was wearing running gear like Tucker, although all coloured in shades of garish orange compared to Tucker’s aquamarine top and shoes.

            “That’s no problem.”

            The man sat down, sighing with relief, and began to fiddle around with the laces on his shoes. “Ah, man, just got these new shoes and I still haven’t figured out how to tie them up properly,” he said conversationally.

            Tucker had been born and bred in Britain, and consequently only spoke to complete strangers unless drunk, or if for some reason his clothes were on fire and the stranger in question happened to be carrying a fire extinguisher. “Oh right, cool,” he said.

            “You jog here a lot?” the man asked. He had a difficult to place accent – something like a mix between East-Coast American and Australian. “You wouldn’t happen to know the way to the nearest Tube station would you? I’ve just moved to London and still am finding my way around.”

            “Oh yeah, if you head down that way,” Tucker said, pointing in the appropriate direction, “keep heading straight and you’ll reach Camden Town station.”

            “Thanks buddy,” the man replied with a cheery smile. He was still fiddling around with his running shoes’ laces – undoing them and weaving them through the holes in different configurations, unhappy with them each time. “Great city, London.”

            “Yeah,” Tucker agreed. It was too socially awkward and rude to just get up and leave the moment the other guy had sat down, so he casually asked, “How long have you been here?”

            The man shrugged. “Two or three weeks now? Feels longer than that,” he laughed. “It’s a big change from Paris but at least I’m speaking English again.”

            He found himself quite liking the guy, despite his forwardness, which Tucker just attributed to him being a foreigner. “Why did you move?”

            “Job. I’m a financial consultant for one of the big banks.”

            “Not many consultants around anymore,” Tucker observed jokingly. The man appeared pleased.

            “Yeah, we have Google and Charon to thank for that, but thankfully there are still niches here and there were we humans outsmart the machines. How about yourself?”      

            Tucker’s good mood dulled a little at the mention of work. “Engineer.”

            “Not many of them around,” the man replied with an easy chuckle.

            “You can say that again.”

            “Not many of them around.”

            Tucker snorted, but part of his brain was also wondering if he was being flirted with. Thankfully attitudes were changing, particularly in younger guys, but it will was a bit uncommon just for one man to strike up a conversation with another completely spontaneously.

            _Again, foreigner. If he’s American like his accent suggests, that would explain things._

“So, what’s there to do in the city?” the man continued, clearly keen to keep the conversation’s momentum going.

            “Are you not here on a permanent basis?” Tucker queried.

            “I’ll be here for at least two years, I’m guessing,” the man replied. “Maybe a little longer? Either way, I want to keep myself busy and sightseeing is one method. Do a bit of cultural enrichment and all that.”        

            “Solid reasoning. Yeah, uh…. well there’s all the obvious stuff. I’d say all the old royal residences are a good start. You can look around the entirety of Buckingham Palace ever since they got rid of King Charles and the rest of the monarchy. The Tower is really worth seeing, as is the British Museum, the National Gallery, the Natural History Museum…”

            “Any favourites?”

            “Oh, Kew Gardens? It’s where that massive statue of Sir David Attenborough is. That’s really worth seeing for the greenhouses.”

            “Sounds good!” the man said keenly. “I’m guessing you are a local and have seen all this stuff a million times.”

            Tucker laughed. “The opposite really. I guess when you live in a place like London, or New York or Paris, you sort of get immunised to the fact you live in this amazing place and you should be going and seeing it all. I haven’t been to the Tower for example in years.”

            “You been here your whole life?”

            “Yep!” Tucker nodded, although expanded on it with, “Although, I’m not one of those ‘I couldn’t live anywhere else types!’ It’s more I just haven’t had a good reason to move anywhere else. I work here and everything.”

            “Oh, neat. What is it that you do? What area of engineering?”

            “Green engineering.”

            “ _’Powering the Future!_ ’ then? That’s one of those big green energy company slogans isn’t it? I’m right, aren’t I?”

            “Rival company mate,” Tucker chuckled.

            “Anyway, I better get on,” the man said, rising to his feet. Tucker did the same, just as the man thrust out a hand. “I’ll see you around then I guess….” He paused, and it took Tucker a moment to realise what the problem was.  

            “Oh, Tucker,” he said at once. “I’m Tucker. Good to meet you.”

            The man grinned broadly and stuck out a hand, which Tucker shook. “Felix. Felix Peiriant, nice to meet you too.”

           

 

            The auto had just entered Wimbledon when Tucker’s somatic computer began to bleep at him that he had an incoming call, bringing him back to himself from the edge of drifting off to sleep. He shifted upright in his seat, wincing slightly at the uncomfortable sensation of his damp running top peeling away from the faux leather seat. Yawning, and rubbing his eyes, he mumbled, “Accept call” to his augmentation.

            There was a moment’s silence before a vaguely familiar woman’s voice was heard in his ears. “Hello, Mr Tucker?”

            “Speaking.”

            “Hi there, I’m Mrs Ives, Junior’s teacher,” the woman explained, which Tucker finally recognised from various parent-teacher meetings he had had at the school in the past. “My apologies for calling you so early; I wanted to arrange a date we could meet to discuss Junior’s school performance before classes begin at eight-thirty.”

            “Is something the matter with Junior’s performance?” Tucker asked immediately, a little perturbed.

            “Junior’s work has become rather….” The woman paused, apparently searching for the most inoffensive phrasing. “Distracted.”

            “How so?”

            “I would prefer to explain the problem in person, if you do not mind Mr Tucker. I want to emphasise that Junior is still behaving excellently in class and appears to be interested in the topics. I just wonder if some change in his home environment might have upset his studies.”

            Tucker pinched the bridge of his nose in unhappy frustration and quietly inhaled and exhaled to ground himself.

            _I should have expected something like this to happen, poor kid._

            Tucker considered his schedule and about what hours Kimball had asked him to come into the office that week. “I can do most afternoons this week.”

            “Would this afternoon at four be suitable for you?”

            “That works fine.”

            “Excellent. I’m sure we can discover what might have upset Junior, Mr Tucker.”

            The call was over as quickly as it had come, and Tucker dismissed the floating HUD with a flick of his hand, yawning again and stretching his arms and back as the auto turned into his street.

            _I really should have warmed down some more_ , Tucker reflected with a slight grimace as his stiff limbs protested at him doing a few basic stretches. His attention, however, was distracted by the sight of another auto pulling away from outside his house.

            _Another auto…? Wait, why would there be…. That’s not a courier services’ vehicle, that’s a city taxi._

            Alarm coursed through him.

            Tucker’s own auto had barely rolled to a halt as he shoved open his door and scrambled out onto the pavement, bringing up his home’s security systems as he did so. The front door was registering having been opened barely two minutes previously, but was not giving feedback about _who_ had opened it. There was nobody moving around inside – or at least – there was nothing that was tripping the motion sensors in the corner of each of the main rooms.

            He reached the front door, which swung open as the house registered his height and facial features, revealing a man standing in the hallway.

            Not a man – a _synth._

            Wash.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi everyone! I'm very sorry for the slightly longer delay than usual in getting this chapter out. I had a heap of university-related work to do and unfortunately that took precedence over Tuckington :( Regardless, I hope you enjoy it and I'm pretty sure I can get the next few out a little more quickly!
> 
> Thank you to LittleFists for beta'ing this chapter, and for all the lovely comments you readers leave in the comments - I really appreciate them!


	26. Chapter 26

            Hands were on his shoulder, fingers digging into his flesh almost to the point of pain. “ _Did they hurt you_?” came the synth’s voice like a boom of thunder.

            “What-“

            “Did they hurt you?” Wash demanded. He held Tucker at arms’ length, his eyes flickering up and down the length of Tucker’s body.

            “No, what? Holy shit-“

            He was cut off by the Wash startlingly pulling him into a tight embrace, Tucker’s face abruptly buried in the soft fabric of Wash’s familiar grey and gold hoodie, which smelt of warm plastic, metal coins and laminated paper. He hadn’t even been aware of the synth’s smell before, not until he now realised how much he missed it.

_Wash is back. Wash is here._

            “Fuck,” Tucker breathed heavily into the fabric. “Fucking hell.”

            Wash was silent for a long time before speaking, the grip of his arms around Tucker tight. “Are you… alright? Did they hurt you?”

            Tucker burst out laughing – mirth rising up within him like a fountain regardless of what they were speaking about. He didn’t care what was being said, he was just so happy to see the bloody machine again. He broke away, grinning broadly, although not quite letting go of Wash’s arm. The synth looked a little different, his hair a more natural blonde and shorter and neater, almost like a military buzz-cut, but was otherwise completely unchanged from the last time Tucker had set eyes on him, that day weeks ago outside Dr Grey’s lab in London. “I…. what? Why are you here? Who hurt me…? Inspector Church? Wait – how did you know-“

            “Dr Grey. She said you had been kidnapped. I took the first flight I could find back to London. I thought something…” Wash said, before trailing off.

            “But I told Dr Grey yesterday I was fine….” Tucker said, confused. “Shit. She must have contact you before I texted her…. Or else thought that message had been faked. And _yes_ , I’m fine,” Tucker said, giving him a reassuring little shake for emphasis. “I’m fine.”

            “The police officer was Inspector Church?” Wash pressed, still alarmed.

            They were interrupted by a sudden squeal of delight.

            “ _Wash!_ ”

            Junior, dressed in his comic book pyjamas, very nearly tumbled down the stairs in excitement, and Tucker hastily manoeuvred himself to be in a position to catch him. “Wash! Wash! Wash!”

            “Hey!” Wash cried as Junior barrelled into him, ruffling the hair of the nine-year-old who was now tightly hugging his waist like a limpet. “You happy to see me?”

            “Careful, he looks as if he’s about to wet himself,” Tucker remarked, smiling from ear to ear. Junior gave him a filthy look.

            “I am _not_ going to wet myself! That’s what babies do.” He turned glanced back up at Wash, and his annoyance was once again forgotten. “You’re back! You’re back! Where did you go? Are the bad people still trying to find you?”

            Wash and Tucker exchanged a meaningful look, and Tucker mouthed ‘ _I’ll explain everything later_ ’ to which Wash nodded his head a fraction. “I went to Germany for a bit, little guy. The bad people are probably still looking for me, but I wanted to make sure you and your Dad are okay.”

            “Germany!” Junior squeaked again, clearly torn between being excited at the name of the place where his grandmother lived and being afraid at the prospect of bad people still looking for Wash. “They aren’t going to come here are they? The bad people? And are you staying? Please stay!”

            “I’m staying, I’m staying. I’m not going to leave again.”

            “Yay!”

            Tucker felt like a valve had been released in his chest, and much of the tension in his heart suddenly eased. He caught Wash’s eye again and smiled, feeling a little giddy. He moved forward and, wrapping his arms around Junior, prised him off the synth and set him down facing the archway to the dining room.

            “Hey!”

            “Come on, champ, why don’t we all go into the kitchen and have some breakfast? You can tell Wash all about what you’ve been up to over the past couple of weeks while he’s gone.”   

            “Can we have pancakes?” Junior said eagerly. “It’s a special occasion.”

            “Yes,” Wash said at once, “You can have pancakes.”

            “Uh, I’m his Dad?” Tucker said mock indignation. “I get to call the shots on whether or not Junior eats pancakes.”

            “Too late!” Junior called, rushing ahead of the two adults. “We’re having pancakes!”

            Wash smirked. “Can Junior have pancakes, Tucker?”

            The synth saying his name made Tucker inordinately happy, although he couldn’t express why. “Doesn’t look like I have much choice on the matter now, does it?”

 

 

             To calm Junior, and allow them both time to discuss things in person, Tucker and Wash got to work making as many pancakes as possible and encouraging Junior to stuff his face accordingly. When the child finally uneasily got up and stumbled towards the living room in order to watch some trashy television on Cartoon Network, the topic immediately turned to matters more pressing than how much flour one should use per pancake.

            “Do the other synths know you’re back in the UK?” Tucker said, once he was sure his son was out of earshot. “You agreed to leave because it could endanger all of them, after all.”

            “Do they know?” Wash echoed, his voice weary. “Bloody hell, they know alright. South and Tex are apparently apoplectic.”

            “And you came back because…?”

            Wash shot Tucker a somewhat judgemental glance as he dunked the frying pan into the sink and began to scrub it down with hot, soapy water. “Why do you think? I thought you were in danger. I flew back to find you and save you.”

            Tucker wasn’t sure how he felt about this. “I’m touched… and I’m reassured by your presence, for Junior’s sake…. But I don’t need you watching my back all the time Wash.”

            “Is this masculine pride speaking or are you going to tell me this Inspector Church is in actual fact a salesman for some private security firm?”

            “Guess I should explain how he factors into this whole equation,” Tucker said, stacking the used cutlery and plates into the open dishwasher. He felt himself clenching his teeth a little, wondering how best to explain what had transpired with Church to Wash. “Basically, Inspector Church is a federal agent.”

            “ _What?_ ” Wash exclaimed, horrified. “He’s…. He’s a federal-“

            “Yes! Yes, he is, but don’t freak out. Brussels suspect someone’s been messing around with synths and they want to find out who. They aren’t interested in you beyond ensuring you aren’t a danger to the public,” Tucker blurted quickly before Wash could alarm the others with only fragments of the whole story. “The High Commissioner, Doyle, spoke to me in person yesterday evening.”

            “Holy shit!”

            “I know, that was pretty much my reaction. Look, _please_ don’t tell anyone, at least until I can talk some more with Doyle and Church. Carolina and Tex and the others will take it completely the wrong way. I genuinely think if the EU wanted you dead, they would not have bothered to contact me, some lowly pleb, about it first.”

            Wash, who had been scrubbing the same spot on the frying pan continuously as he stared open-mouthed at Tucker, gave himself a little shake. “Right, I see.”

            “Don’t be mad. I really didn’t have much of a choice.”

            Wash set down the pan and ran a hand through his short hair, blinking rapidly as if he was very tired all of a sudden. “I see. Brussels wants a piece of the action. Did anything _else_ happen in my absence that’s worth knowing about?”

            Tucker pulled a face. “Errr…. Kai knows about you?”

            This didn’t make Wash angry so much as make him groan. “ _Tucker!_ ”

            “I’m sorry! I’m sorry, I’m genuinely sorry. I regret telling her, but I was drunk and lonely. Lonely? I mean…. uh….”

            “How much does she know?”

            “She knows about you and the others, and I’ve told her that I suspect that you are military robots, but that’s it. I haven’t mentioned any of the areas we are investigating or detail any of what I’ve seen in the VR simulations.”

            Wash gave Tucker a long stare before sighing.

            “Okay. I can bear Kai knowing about us – I’m pretty sure she suspected something was wrong with me in the first place.”

            Tucker laughed. “Where’s the lie?” he asked easily, running a kitchen cloth under the tap and beginning to wipe down the granite work surfaces covered in a fine snow of flour thanks to Junior’s antics.

            “So political interference, betraying me to your friends-“

            “’Betrayal’ is a strong word….”

            Wash grinned and corrected himself. “Fine _. Back-stabbing_ me. What else? I know you’re wearing some of those contact lenses. I can detect the EM radiation coming from them.”

            Tucker smiled. “I still have a hipster-like desire to deny using them, you know. Reject mainstream culture and become a cool luddite or something. But yeah, I had them fitted, and I wouldn’t ever be without them now.”

            “I’ve had them this entire time you know, or something very similar,” Wash bragged.

            “Yeah, yeah, I know, you and your cool robot abilities.”

            There was a comfortable lull in the conversation, but Tucker’s heart was beating fast in his chest.

            _I need to tell him about the woman I saw. The woman who identified Wash as her deceased, biological brother…_

Tucker felt himself tensing up, trying to will himself into explaining, but doubt had already shaken his convictions. It seemed brutal to leave Wash in the dark, but Tucker had to know for sure if what he had seen was true. How would Wash feel if he discovered his entire appearance was based off some other man, a stranger? It felt a bit like telling someone that they were adopted in Tucker’s mind.

            _I will tell him, just not now. Not when he has barely been home an hour._

            Tucker shifted the topic of conversation instead. “So you are staying for good? You mean that, don’t you?”

            “Well, if Inspector Church is who you say he is, then we synths remain undetected, don’t we?” Wash said. “I’m as safe here as I was before he crashed our little drinks party all those weeks ago, and to be honest…. I’ve come to the conclusion I’d rather be around to defend you should shit hit the fan.”

            “Again with the protecting?” Tucker said. He said it jokingly, but the thought of the synth hovering around the house like some sort of possessive guardian angel did genuinely annoy him.

            “Consider it protection _just_ in case something goes wrong,” Wash assured.

            “Fine, although I might as well put you to use then. Do you mind looking after Junior this afternoon?” Tucker asked, kicking the dishwasher closed with his foot and tossing the kitchen cloth into the sink to be cleaned. “I’m meeting with his class teacher.”

            Wash’s brow furrowed. “For good reasons, I hope?”

            “Not sure,” Tucker grimaced. “She was kind of vague about it, so we’ll just have to wait and see.”

            The kitchen clean – at least until dinner – Tucker went through into the living room to try and persuade Junior to get dressed and ready for school, but could feel the blood in his cheeks and ears. Tucker wanted to say something to Wash, following casually behind him, about how glad he was that he was home again, about how happy he was to see his blue eyes and stupid smile and ridiculous haircuts again, but he could think of nothing that did not sound like it was steeped with some greater meaning or emotion.

           

 

            “Would you like anything to drink, Mr Tucker?” Mrs Ives said cheerily as Tucker sat at a desk in front of Junior’s teacher’s desk. It was at the front of a large modern classroom large enough for about twenty children to sit at shared desks and illuminated well by bright overhead ceiling panels. Aside from the darkened windows along the left wall and the broad white expanse of the smartboard at the front of the room, most of the wall space was occupied with colourful posters and children’s artwork, one or two Tucker was pleased to recognise as Junior’s work.

            Tucker shook his head. “No, thank you.”

            “I see you’ve spotted Junior’s latest piece,” Mrs Ives said, pulling back her chair and sitting across the desk from him. She was short and rather plump, her frizzy ginger hair drawn up into a neat bun. She had her own small plastic cup of coffee that she was periodically sipping from despite it being the evening. “Rather a… uh… special one, that one.”

            She meant ‘special’ in the sense that the painting was of another monstrous alien being that Junior had a predilection of creating, regardless of the actual theme he was meant to be working towards like ‘Vikings’ or ‘Big Cats’ or ‘World War One’. Tucker simply chuckled. “I hope he didn’t get in any trouble for that.”

            “No, no,” the woman said at once. “Mr Tucker, I want to emphasise before I go on that Junior is well-behaved and engaged student in my class. At times he can be a little… _boisterous_ , shall we say, but that is a trait certainly not unique to him in children his age.”

            “I’m glad to hear it,” Tucker said, pleased.

            The woman straightened slightly, clasping her hands together where they rested on the lacquered wooden surface of the desk. “However, in recent weeks, we’ve found there has been a certain…. lack of engagement, particularly concerning his homework.”

            Tucker frowned, uneasily suspecting where this conversation was heading. “I’ve been making sure that he’s been doing it.”

            “Oh, he’s certainly making a decent attempt; that I am not questioning!” Mrs Ives quickly acknowledged. “However, as I said on the phone, he overall seems more distracted. His grades have fallen, and often there will be obvious mistakes in the work he hands in. I spoke to him personally a few days ago, including recommending the pastoral care officer the school has available to all children, but there has yet to be signs of improvement.”

            “Did he give any reasons when you spoke to him?”

            The woman pursed her lips unhappily. “He seemed quite distressed that I had brought the topic up in fact, and hence I took the decision to speak to you personally.”

            Thanks to the distraction of Wash’s unexpected return, Tucker had missed his usual morning shave, and rubbed at the faint stubble on his chin and jaw absently while he considered what the teacher was saying. “I see… Well, there have been certain… changes… at home. I think those should be resolved now, thankfully.”

            “I hope so,” Mrs Ives said after Tucker paused. “Again, the school has resources available to children going through difficulties at home, and contacts to more advanced child services should the individual case call for it.”

            “Junior is already familiar with those services,” Tucker said quietly, “He was speaking to a counsellor following my wife’s death last year.”

            Mrs Ives nodded, retaining her composure. “Of course – my apologies.”

            “Has he…. Has he given any indication to what the problem might be, in his work?”

            This question the woman had prepared for. She opened a draw on the side of her desk and drew out a piece of lined paper, covered in Junior’s messy scrawl, which she passed across the desk. Like his father, Junior didn’t have particularly neat handwriting, and it took a moment for Tucker’s eyes to decipher what he was reading.

            “Why School is Pointless’?” Tucker read aloud, before raising his eyebrows at Mrs Ives. “Right…”

            “He’s done several such pieces, including one for History and one for Cultural Studies, usually only tenuously related to the task he was assigned,” the woman said heavily. “The reoccurring theme is that him coming to school is pointless because super-intelligent synths are going to take over.”

            _Oh boy._

“I see.”

            “Can you think of any events that might have triggered this?”

            _Where do I begin?_

“Well, we got a synth a few weeks back. Junior has probably been so impressed by it’s…. uh…. performance that he thinks human education is no longer necessary.”

            Mrs Ives nodded understandingly. “That’s certainly a possibility. To a certain extent, I actually agree with your son, Mr Tucker.”

            This took Tucker, whose mind had been momentarily elsewhere, aback. “Wait, what? Really?”

            “Yes. There’s certainly elements of our current curriculum that remain focussed on a career-base future for children that is likely never going to happen. Exams and grading in particular doesn’t seem to have much merit at Junior’s age. I try and maintain an environment where the focus is on fun rather than evaluation, but there is only so much I can do.”

            Tucker thought about this for a while. “It’s certainly going to be difficult to persuade him that school is important with all the advances in AI intelligence that we see on the news.”

            _And, you know, the fact he lives with a sentient robot._

“If I may, Mr Tucker, I would encourage Junior to aspire to learn for the sake of learning and self-improvement, rather than as a means to get a job.”

            Tucker laughed. “I’m not sure how I’m going to sell that message to a nine-year-old but I’ll try.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks as ever to all the great feedback many of you are giving in the form of comments and kudos :) I really love reading and replying to them all!
> 
> EDIT: Irritatingly a few last-minute typo corrections and edits I made before sending this story live haven't seemed to have registered, so I'm going back over this chapter as much as I can to find and correct them! Sorry for any errors!


	27. Chapter 27

            Tucker waved gently as Emily entered the café, drawing her attention to where he was sitting on a small table next to the window. With a faint smile, she walked over to join him, sitting opposite where a cup of coffee and a plate with a slice of brownie were already waiting.

            “As you requested,” Tucker said, taking a sip from his own coffee as he gestured to the drink and the food.

            “Thank you. I’m sorry I’m late.”

            Tucker shook his head. “Not a problem. Where have you left Elouise?”

            “She’s got piano lessons and then is going to a friend of hers, so I don’t have to worry about getting back.” She shrugged off her coat, hanging it on the back of her chair. “Junior?”

            “Ditto, pretty much. He’s with Wash, which I guess gets us onto our first subject….”

            There was a pause between them, as both the adults gauged the other’s mood.

            “Look, I’m sorry for over-reacting,” Grey sighed, giving Tucker a level look. “With you mentioning the auto acting up and then the call cutting out a moment later, I became alarmed. When I found that all mobile phone service for North London had cut out entirely, I became scared. I sent some crazy email to that darknet address-“

            “Emily, I’m not mad,” Tucker interrupted firmly. “I’m…. I’m glad you did what you did. I’m glad Wash came back.”

            The professor broke a small piece of brownie off with her fork and popped it in her mouth, chewing and swallowing it before replying. “If it really is Commissioner Doyle you spoke to, then I guess we still have nothing to fear.”

            “Wash felt the same.”

            “Just…. next time, send me longer texts explaining what happened. You saying just ‘I’m fine, I’ll see you in a few days’ after I’ve presumed you have been abducted does not bring peace of mind,” Emily said. Her tone was not accusative but, rarely for her, were not particularly friendly either. She seemed unsettled, unhappy.

            “I apologise. Hopefully I’m not going to be in a situation where I have to reassure you I have not been abducted again.”

            “Good.” She tried her drink. “This is good coffee by the way. It’s nice in here.”

            It _was_ nice in the café. It was rather expensive, but was independently owned in the centre of the city, and a refreshing change from the sterile, copy-pasted interiors of Starbucks and Costas with its Scandinavian inspired minimalist design. The air smelt of roasted coffee beans and hot pastries.

            “I know. I used to come here all the time.”

            There was an awkward silence.

            Tucker broke it. “You’ve found something, haven’t you? About that woman I saw.”

            Emily nodded stiffly. “Yes, I have. I found someone who matched the description the woman you encountered gave. Tucker, it’s not…. It’s not good. There are…. _implications_.”

            “I’m ready to deal with whatever you tell me.”

            Emily reached into her handback and pulled out a tablet. Unlocking it with the fingerprint scanner, she tapped through the displays until she found what she was looking for and handed it across the table to Tucker.

            It was a photo of Wash.

            Except, this man he was looking at wasn’t Wash. Not really.

            It was a low quality image, most of the details had been lost and the colours distorted thanks to whatever compression and storage it had undergone since being taken, but almost every feature this man had was shared by his artificial counterpart. From the curve of his lips to the shape and angle of his eyes, everything was identical.

            The image was a header for brief profile, clearly harvested from some organisation or government’s database. “David Whistler,” Tucker read aloud, his voice still and neutral. “Born 10th of January 1998 in Winchester, England. BSc Politics and Economics from the University of Exeter. Served in the British Army between 2020-2021. Killed in action.”

            Tucker swallowed and glanced at Emily, who simply stared down at her mostly untouched brownie.

            The _implications_ were as clear as day. How could they not be, after seeing this?

            “Wash is a copy of this man, and not just in terms of his face…”

            Emily looked at him again, trying to keep her expression composed. “I believe so, yes. Wash’s software architecture…. It’s based off an actual person.”

            “He died and they scanned his brain into a computer.”

            Emily began to shake her head. “Tucker, they could have done a biopsy to get that data; he does not necessarily have to have been dead…”

            “Do you believe that?” Tucker questioned, his voice harsh. “You believe that this man happened to volunteer for, what, an incredibly high resolution brain scan and then just coincidentally died a few months later?”

            Emily opened her mouth, closed it, and then shook her head, anguished. “No.”

            Tucker took a deep breath, and seeing that she was as just as upset as he was about this development, said, “I’m sorry.” It came out quietly.

            ““I had wondered…” Emily began hesitantly, before trailing off for a few seconds. “Tucker, I had _suspected_ they had used an organic human brain as the basis for the software present in the synths. Even when you first claimed you had met his relative, I didn’t believe…” She paused again, judging his reaction before continuing, repeatedly knotting her fingers together. “It was too complex, too advanced, for any computer scientist or advanced AI to produce on its own. I never mentioned it, because…. because I was afraid of the possibility. I didn’t want to consider that this…. this _marvel_ was borne out of some grisly autopsy. I preferred to think of it as immaculate, as having spontaneously generated from some self-learning algorithms, or created from a brain scan on a living person using technology I hadn’t learned the existence of. That would have been bearable…. but this…”

            She remained silent for a long time, watching people pass by on the pavement on the other side of the window.

            “Do you think….” Tucker said, voice catching on the final syllable, “do you think anything remains of the man? This David? Is Wash a continuation of him…. or some sort of…. successor?”

            Emily’s voice was bleak and cutting. “Tucker… I… I don’t know! How could I know? I mean, he can barely remember anything of his existence before that memory wipe a year ago – how can we expect him to remember…. the memories of…” She stopped to collect herself, and when she continued, she was almost inaudible. “Tucker, you are asking some of the most fundamental questions of human existence. What is ‘self’? To what extent does memory make someone who they are? Does uploading a human brain into a computer transfer their consciousness, or does it just make a computer programme that thinks it is that person?”

            These questions were not new to Tucker. He had done A-Level philosophy after all, as poorly taught as that subject had been in his secondary school, and questions like this had inevitably arisen and been idly discussed by himself and his peers with all the arrogance of eighteen-year-olds who still thought they would live forever. Later, during rough patches in university, and later still following the death of Junior’s mother, these existential questions haunted Tucker more frequently. They had always been surrounded by an aura of irrelevance however, distant questions for distant future generations that would never concern him directly, until the moment that Wash turned to him in his auto all those weeks ago and claimed to be conscious.

            He felt sick.

            “Suppose…. I don’t know. Where are memories stored? The hippocampus, isn’t it? Can…. Could that theoretically be discarded while the rest of the brain retained? So-“

            “No,” Emily interrupted shakily. “I’m not a neuroscientist Tucker, but the brain is not something that can just be chopped and changed with the expectation that the end result will remain the same. If…. If we assume that somehow they erased all of… David’s memories in the creation of Wash, we can only assume that they are not the same person.”

            “I’m not sure if that makes it better or worse.”

            “Would anything make it better?”

            The answer to that swum up to Tucker from somewhere deep in his mind the moment Emily closed her mouth. “Consent. I need…. I need to know that David Whistler gave consent to transfer his brain into a computer.”

            Emily cupped her hands against her face, dragging her fingers down her nose and across her mouth. “I…. Would that make it better? Really?”

            “Yes!” Tucker exclaimed gently, “Of course it would.”

            “The end result is the same. A computer that does not know it is just a shade of a man.”

            A spark of anger flickered inside Tucker’s chest. He snapped his head around to face Emily, and she caught his gaze, evaluating him with sad eyes. “ _No_! Emily, no, Wash is not just some shade! Regardless of his past. The consent aspect of it matters because…. If he gave his consent, than it’s just a man deciding to back up his brain should something terrible happen to him. I can cope with that. If he did not give his consent, then…. then they’ve effectively ripped someone out of their own body. Used all of someone’s very being to achieve their own ends. It’s monstrous. Disgusting.”

            Emily was quiet for a while before nodding. “You’re right.”

            They sat together at the table in silence for a while, watching more families and tourists and business people walk past on the street outside, going about their day. Tucker let some of the anger drain out of him, and forced himself to eat and enjoy some more of his own brownie. The chocolatey, gooey sweetness was a comforting distraction.

            “Were you able to find anything else?” he asked at length.

            “Very little. Whether by his family, the military or some other branch of the government, his public records have largely been purged from any archives I could access, which is telling in of itself. I had to do quite a bit of wrangling with the European Army’s Archivist AI in order to find these service records,” Emily said. “I’m sorry Tucker.”

            “No,” Tucker said at once, “don’t be sorry – you’ve done more than enough. Thank you.”

            “Are you…. Are you going to mention this to him?”

            Tucker wiped his mouth with a napkin and considered this. “No…. I…. I mean, I need to find out more.”

            “Tucker, there isn’t any more. I’ve had bots trawling the internet for the past three days for any information on this man and I can’t find anything – not even a deactivated Facebook account. This is all we’ve got.”

            “There’s the family.”

            Emily, who had finally drunk a little more of her coffee, set her ceramic mug down hard on the table. “Tucker, _no_.”

            “If there is nowhere else to turn though? If we have exhausted all other options?”

            “We can’t bring his family into this!” Emily exclaimed, gesturing with an outstretched hand. “This man is dead and his family would have grieved for him; we can’t just pop around to their home and start asking questions. What would we even ask?”

            “If he had been contacted by anyone in the years leading up to his death, or if-“

            Emily reached across the table and put a grip on his hand. “Tucker, this all happened over a decade ago. Even if they had known anything about David signing up to some computer science programme, or wanted to talk to us about it, they could well have forgotten the details!”

            “Then what else can we do with this information?” Tucker exclaimed hopelessly, rubbing both his eyes with his fingers. “We’ve basically fucking found this horrible piece of information about Wash for…. what? To what end? We’ve just saddled ourselves needlessly with this knowledge.”

            “I’m a scientist Tucker, and sometimes we just have to accept that knowledge doesn’t always have an applicable use, or does not have a use _at the moment._ When we find out more about the organisation or government who did this, maybe then and only then will this revelation about David Whistler be pertinent.”

            Tucker realised their voices had both been raised slightly, and quickly dropped to a more muted tone. Emily, noticing this, uneasily glanced around to see if anyone had been listening in. “What if the only way to find out about this organisation is via his family?”

            “When I said there was nothing more to learn from the name ‘David Whistler’,” I meant just that.” Emily explained quietly. “David the human is a dead end. We still have the molecular forge in Toulouse as an option of investigation, or the fact we know, thanks to your time in the VR suite, details about the synths’ activities in Algeria. If Wash and David are…. connected, then we know that whoever is running this operation had links to either the insurgents in Syria or the allied forces. The David Whistler thing we can leave, for now.”

            “I…. Look…” Tucker began, but realised he had lost this battle. “Fine!” he huffed.

            There was another protracted, awkward silence. The entire conversation had been riddled with them, where neither party had anything more to say but what to move on to was not immediately obvious.

            “Are you okay?” Tucker said eventually. “Sorry, I’ve been a dick. It’s just…. this is a real shitstorm.”

            Emily’s eyes, from where they had been staring at the warm coffee mug in her hands, flickered back up to catch Tuckers and softened. “I’m sorry too, I didn’t mean to raise my voice. I’m upset. I’m upset because…” She looked back at her coffee. “What I haven’t been able to stop thinking about for weeks has ended up being something I want nothing to do with.”

            “You can’t think of it completely that way.”

            “I know, I know. I’m going to keep studying the synth’s software and material properties, but I need a break first. I’m going to take time off work, spend time at home with Elouise, and not return until the new year.”

            “I can understand that,” Tucker nodded sympathetically. He then remembered something. “Is everything in the lab okay? You mentioned your colleagues were getting suspicious.”

            Emily smiled for the first time since she had sat down, and rubbed her eyes with the heel of her palm. “I was tired, and I think I might have been imagining things. I got too caught up with all of this, had too many sleepless nights.”

            “You gotta lay of the science Emily,” Tucker teased gently.

            The professor rolled her eyes ever so slightly.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you to LittleFists for beta'ing this chapter! I hope you guys all enjoy! It's definitely an 'angst' chapter rather than a 'fluff' chapter but again, there is fluff approaching!
> 
> A note on names: I chose 'Whistler' as Wash/David's surname because a) it kept Wash/David's initials as D.W. in line with most fandom thinking; b) 'Whistler' is 8 letters long as the Official RvB Fanbook suggests; c) it's the surname of an American artist I like :P
> 
> Want to ask me questions about the fic? Want to talk tuckington? Want to follow a fairly disorganised, random blog that occasionally features tuckington? I'm on Tumblr as Oenotherax :)


	28. Chapter 28

           “Are you drunk already?”

            Wash’s voice broke Tucker away from the day’s football highlights, and he lolled his head onto his shoulder to regard the synth. Wash was curled up in his usual spot, on the armchair in the corner of the room closest to the wall sockets, fondly regarding Tucker who was sprawled out across the main sofa opposite the blank section of wall that acted as a television. There was still a log crackling away in the wood-burning stove, meaning the room was warm and smelled faintly, but pleasantly, of wood smoke. With the main lights dimmed, the electric glow surrounding Wash’s pupils seemed to stand out particularly prominently.

            Tucker frowned. “I’ve only had like two beers.”

            “You’ve had three,” Wash corrected, nodding his head ever so slightly to the floor where Tucker remembered there was indeed another empty bottle. “And you’re a massive lightweight.”

            Tucker thought for a moment. “I’m like pleasantly…. uh…. tipsy at the moment. I’m not drunk. Besides, at least I can _get_ drunk, Mr Robot.”

            “Can’t say I know what I’m missing.”

            There was a double negative – or something – in that sentence that Tucker was too mellow to bother figuring out, so instead he simply held his gaze with Wash for a lot longer than he would have done had he been sober.

            “How did your meet-up with Emily go today?” Wash asked after a moment.

            _Oh, it was great fun_. _I learned all about your original. I had a whale of a time._

            “Yeah, it was fine,” Tucker said amiably, turning back to watch Arsenal score a truly spectacular goal against the opposing team. He took another swig of his beer. “Just talked about the kids and stuff.”

            “Any news to report about us synths?”

            “Nope,” Tucker said, perhaps a touch too quickly. He forced himself not to send an uneasy glance in Wash’s direction, knowing that really would betray the lie. “She’s still searching for more clues.”

            “Okay.”

            “Have you heard anything from the others?” Tucker asked, changing the topic.

            “Yeah, most of the other’s aren’t saying much – they’re still pissed – but I get the impression we’re going to get a visit from Carolina over the next few days.”

            “I’ll get some houmous from the supermarket than,” Tucker said, quietly noting that down the reminder his lenses’ calendar app, before continuing conversationally. “How was your day? I still don’t really know what you do all day when I’m out. You just seem to bum around the house and clean and shit.”

            Wash sniffed in faint irritation. “That makes my life sound _way_ more tragic than it actually is.”

            “When was the last time you got out? And I don’t just mean when you have been living with me, I mean when you were staying wherever you were staying in Germany too.”

            Wash closed his eyes and took a deep, patient breath. “Not for a few weeks, _but-_ “

            “Man, come on! This vague yet menacing organisation that is after you isn’t going to find you after one harmless night out on the town.” Suddenly possessed with lively energy, Tucker leapt to his feet. “Let’s go to a bar, or go clubbing or something, right now!”

            “Junior is upstairs. We can’t leave him alone,” Wash reminded.

            Tucker came to a halt quickly enough that he nearly lost his balance, and wobbled precariously in the middle of the room. He shot the synth a sheepish grin. “Oh yeah. Well…. why don’t we… uh….”

            Wash seemed to be enjoying himself, watching Tucker with a bemused, critical expression. Tucker, looking around, suddenly had an idea. Picking up one of the discarded beer bottles sitting on the floor, he placed it horizontally on the glass coffee table and gestured towards it. “Let’s play spin the bottle! Truth or dare!”

            “What are we, seventeen-year-olds?”

            “Okay, truth and truth then. That’s probably better, it means we don’t get up to anything stupid that might wake up Junior.”

            Wash chuckled. “ _Us_ doing something stupid? Don’t you mean _you_ doing something stupid?”

            “Nobody likes a smart-arse Wash.”

            Tucker sat, a little unsteadily, at one end of the coffee table and pointed expectantly at the other. “Come on! Humour me.”

            With a great show of exasperation, Wash stretched ever so slightly and made to stand. There was a faint click as he pulled out the silvery charging cable from the port at the base of his spine. “Do you want to go first?” he said, kneeling where Tucker had indicated.

            Tucker span the bottle. The two of them watch it twirl before it eventually ended up facing towards Wash. Tucker took a moment to think, taking a swig of beer as he did so.

            “What is…. What is your favourite colour?”

            “Wow,” said Wash, “this game is going to be riveting.”

            “I didn’t have a chance to think of a good one!” Tucker spluttered in protest.

            “It’s gold.”

            There was a pause in which both of them tried to keep a straight face before they both snickered. While Wash had been joking about them both playing a teenager’s game, Tucker in that moment genuinely felt fifteen years younger, filled with the warm glow of alcohol and affection.

            Wash spun the bottle this time, and it came to face Tucker. “Okay, my turn. What is…. What’s the hardest drugs you’ve ever done?”

            “Uh…. Jesus, this is lame but just weed I guess? I smoked a lot of weed in secondary school. This was back when it was illegal too, mind. I never did any hard stuff – never really hung out with anyone else who did them. Have you done any drugs?”

            “Ah yeah, pure battery acid. That stuff is the shit. Best high ever, I’m telling you!”  

            Tucker’s mouth fell open. “ _What?_ Really?”

            “Of course not!”

            “Oh…”

            Tucker, ignoring Wash’s smirk and deciding to ignore the beer bottle too, thought up a new question that he had been wondering about for some time and only now felt brave enough to ask. “My turn. Are you a virgin?”

            Wash visibly flushed, his cheeks reddening through some unknown process. “Can we have like UN Security Council rules and have a veto over answering certain questions?”

            “No!” Tucker cried at once. “That ruins the fun of it! Are you?”

            “Nah.”

            Tucker raised an eyebrow. “Go on….?” he pressed, dragging out the syllables of the words. For a split second, he wondered if David Whistler had had a boyfriend or girlfriend, but he furiously stamped the thought back into the recesses of his mind.

            “No! That’s more than one question.” Wash adjusted his sitting position, leaning in a little closer to the man across the coffee table. “Hmmm…. Fine, when did you lose _your_ virginity?”

            Tucker grinned conspiratorially. “On my sixteenth birthday.”

            Wash made an expression that clearly translated as _I should have known_. “Jeez, you didn’t wait around the moment it became legal for you to bang, did you?”

            “No way. My girlfriend at the time was ten days older than me and we agreed we’d do it the night I turned sixteen too. Wasn’t much fun really, neither of us had any idea of what we were doing and I came like after like sixty seconds.”

            “Lavernius Tucker: womaniser,” Wash quipped dryly.

            Tucker, who had been drinking more of his beer, choked upon hearing this, very nearly sending beer up his nose. “Hey!” he exclaimed halfway between being defensive and cackling with laughter, “Trust me, I know what the ladies like, okay? Speaking of…”

            Wash pointed at the bottle. “You’ve got to spin the bottle first!”

            “What? We haven’t spun it for the last two questions! You’re just trying to avoid-“

            “Spin the damn bottle, Tucker,” Wash ordered.

            Grumbling, Tucker span it, and predictably, it ended up facing him again. Wash laughed. “What a stroke of good luck. Okay, my question. What is…. _Where_ is, rather, the most unusual place you’ve gotten off.”

            In his underwear, Tucker could feel himself get hard. He had never spoken so candidly with Wash about sex before, and there was something thrilling in doing so. He felt like every muscle in his body was suddenly thrumming – like ever cell was burning through fats and sugars and proteins at an accelerated rate and now he could barely contain the excess energy. He was hyper-aware of what his hands were doing, how his gaze kept wandering over Wash’s eyes and lips and throat and the breadth of his shoulders. Tucker could feel the blood warm just beneath the surface of his own skin, could feel his palms damp with sweat; feel his diaphragm swell and dip faster, feel his pulse come quicker.

            Tucker tried to focus on the question. “Probably… Jesus, I’m actually really vanilla. Probably this public pool? Me and my girlfriend – a different girlfriend – both worked at it over the summer and well, we were fooling around….”

            Wash wrinkled his nose. “You can spare me all the gory details.”

            _Gory details. Gory details. They scanned David’s brain in a computer-_

“Gory? Mate, when I get it on with someone, it’s like art. Poetry in motion, that sort of shit,” Tucker rebuked, slurring the ‘s’ on ‘shit’ ever so slightly.

            The bottle span again, and this time it ended up facing Wash. Tucker let out a Machiavellian cackle and set his beer down so he could melodramatically rub his palms together. “Right, back to the important stuff. Tell me how you lost your virginity.”

            Wash raised an eyebrow ever so slightly. He had been leaning backwards on his hands, but now sat upright again.

            “You’re awfully keen to know.”

            “What can I say? I don’t often have an opportunity to discover the sexual predilections of war robots.”

            One of Wash’s hands automatically moved to knead his opposite shoulder whilst with the other he absently rubbed his nails against the base of his thumb. “Okay, well…. I don’t know, it isn’t much of a story. Just met…. a guy…. in a bar one night whilst we were on the run. He said he lived nearby and…. well, one thing led to another.” The synth trailed off, avoiding Tucker’s eyes.

            Tucker burst out laughing. “You don’t have to look like you’ve killed a man…! Although, you didn’t _actually_ end up killing him did you? There isn’t like a M. Night. Shyamalan-esque plot twist coming up, is there?”

            Tucker’s good humour had the desired effect of erasing the worst of Wash’s sudden shyness. “Why the fuck would I kill him?”

            “I don’t know, he discovered your true nature or something? How did you manage to avoid him finding your charging port, for example?”

            “Give Connie or North some paper, some glue and a bit of concealer and they can work wonders, trust me.”

            “But concealer wouldn’t work on paper…”

            “Wonders,” Wash emphasised, “wonders.”

            _Wonders. A wonder. A wonder of science-_ Tucker began to think before scolding himself. _Fucking cut it out!_

            But he couldn’t stop himself. Unleashed by the alcohol and the subconscious intimacy of the situation, foreign emotions were rushing through Tucker’s arteries and veins as readily as blood. The slow realisation that he was attracted to Wash on more than just a superficial aesthetic level was mingling with the nascent horror of discovering the synth’s origins. Tucker was attracted to Wash’s polymer and metal body, as he had initially discovered all those weeks ago when he had first purchased him, but also his personality: his dry humour, quiet decency and calmness that was interspersed with hot flashes of anger. What repulsed him…. was not as tangible, not as clear in his mind, but what repeatedly came to him was the image of the corpse of David Whistler, lying on a mortician’s slab, being prepared to have its skull cut open. The unknown mechanisms that generated Wash’s consciousness operated within the clean, sterile graphene circuits and nano-gels of his artificial brain, but Tucker couldn’t help but think of the bloody, grisly story of _Frankenstein_ and all its countless retellings and adaptions. Was Frankenstein’s Monster’s consciousness a perpetuation of the previous owner of the brain that Frankenstein had used, or was it some new occupant? Was Wash a whole individual, a true person, or simply a shadow on the wall of the cave?

            Part of Tucker, fuelled by his attraction, felt he shouldn’t really care whether or not Wash was a continuation of David. _Why should it matter?_ Why not take the pragmatist’s view and simply enjoy what was before him? He found he could convince himself that this was the case, only for the thoughts of David and bone saws and ultramicrotomes to insidiously return a few minutes later.

            “What?” Wash asked. “You’re looking at me funny.”

            Tucker came back to the present, realising he was holding his beer close to his mouth without moving to drink any of it. “Huh? Oh, I was just thinking about something.”

            “You going to tell me?”

            “Oh, I’m thinking indecent thoughts of you in bed,” Tucker teased lightly. Wash predictably turned bright red, which reminded Tucker of something.

            “I _still_ want to know how you are able to do that.”

            “Huh?” said Wash distractedly.

            “Turn bright red, when you have no blood. Isn’t synth electrolyte blue? Why aren’t you turning blue instead?”

            “My skin isn’t translucent like human skin is,” Wash explained, apparently a little embarrassed. “It’s just electrochromatic crystals in my polymer that react to fluctuating electric current.”

            “Wait, can you turn other colours then? Can you turn green?”

            “I only have crystals for a set range of colours,” Wash said.

            Tucker grinned, his voice facetious. “Oh, disappointing.”

            Wash returned the broad smile, flashing his white teeth and the corners of his eyes crinkling up in a very pleasing way.

            _He’s a whole person_ , Tucker thought ferociously. _He’s Wash and his past doesn’t change who he is. He’s my buddy._ Considering this, he added to this statement: _But I’ll fucking find out who created him, to put to rest David Whistler._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey everyone! My apologies for the massive gap between this chapter and the last. Basically upcoming exams combined with the fact I've not been very well for the past two weeks have resulted in me not writing as much as I usually do. Additionally, while you shouldn't fear that the story is going to stop updating (I would tell you if that was the case and I very much doubt that would happen unless I have an untimely demise), Ones and Zeroes is definitely moving into a stage where I have to be more careful with the plot and character development and as such the updates may slow down somewhat. I still am going to aim for a "One Chapter Per Fortnight" schedule but please be prepared to wait a little longer on occasion. 
> 
> Also, I keep saying "Next chapter will be fluffier, I promise!" and never really deliver :P I hope this chapter makes up for it a little, even with all the talk about bone saws (yeeeurgh). By the way, if anyone has watched "Penny Dreadful", I'm definitely going for dat Season 1 Frankenstein vibe with a few paragraphs. Similar story with anyone who has read "The Mortal Engines Quartet / The Hungry City Chronicles" by Philip Pullman. Shrike from those stories is the shit.
> 
> Also Tucker is definitely beginning to get more thirsty for Wash. There aren't going to be any explicit sex scenes but be prepared for Tucker wanting the D a bit. 
> 
> ALSO (shit, I have a lot to say), thank you as ever for all those leaving comments and kudos. I have to keep repeating myself about this because I feel genuinely so grateful for the feedback - it's so nice to see. I will get back to various people's comments over the past few chapters I haven't gotten around to properly reading through and replying to! :)


	29. Chapter 29

            Being the final few days of work before the company broke up for the winter holidays, not a great deal of work was actually being done at Chorus Energy. Bitters was outright chatting to his girlfriend on his lenses and nobody was batting an eyelid – the clock was getting close to five o’clock, and people were itching to leave and begin to make their way home.

            Consequently, when Kimball suddenly said “Tucker! I need to speak with you for a moment,” as he made his way back from the lavatories, he couldn’t help but think something bad was about to happen.

            The woman led him into one of the office’s large conference rooms that was used for weekly meetings that detailed progress reports, employee feedback, client satisfaction and the like. In fitting with the office’s overall design style, it was only separated from the rest of office by a large soundproof glass wall, meaning Tucker could see several of his co-workers giving surreptitious looks in his direction and murmuring to one another about what might be being discussed inside. The furniture inside the space was minimal: a large, long glass table, black swivelling office chairs like that found throughout the rest of the building and a potted plant sitting neglected in one corner. The air in the room always had a strong sterile smell to it, something between the scent of fresh paint and artificial lemon-scented cleaning fluid, and the only sound was the faint hum of the climate control system emanating from the ceiling.

             To Tucker’s surprise, Kimball neither sat nor asked him to sit, but simply set her work satchel down on the table’s surface and pulled out a sturdy file binder. Tucker shut the glass door awkwardly behind him, still very much unsure over what this impromptu meeting was about.

            “Have you got a decent black-tie?”

            “Sorry? Oh… uh, yes,” Tucker replied, dragging out the last syllable as he thought about the old suit he had wrapped up in plastic in his wardrobe back home. He wasn’t actually sure if it still fit him, as he had bulked up a fair bit since the last time he had worn it, but it was better than nothing. “I have one.”

            “Good,” Kimball said, and pulled from the binder a small, slim piece of card, which she handed to Tucker. It turned out, in fact, that the card was not so much card as very expensive and thick paper, upon which was written in glossy print an invitation to a formal garden party that was to be held in May.

            Kimball let out a low laugh at Tucker’s expression. “There’s no need to look too horrified.”

            “I’m not horrified!” Tucker said hastily, “I’m just…. very…. uh…. I just wasn’t expecting this at all, you see.”

            “I’ve told you about how our south coast client does these fancy receptions; this shouldn’t come as too much of a surprise,” Kimball said easily, perching herself on the edge of the table. She nodded at the card. “They only specified that the invitation was for another employee in the company, and so I thought you were the best candidate for the job.”

            “I’m flattered,” Tucker said earnestly.

            “Do you not think this is the case? That you are the best person to ask?”

            “No, well… of course I want to come, but, are you sure you don’t want to bring someone with a more important job role? I’m just the guy who fixes the thing if the company synths don’t have the problem solving skills to fix the thing.”

            “Tucker,” Kimball said patiently, “this client is _very_ well to do. I’ve done a bit of research into the guy and he has an investment portfolio that would rival Richard Branson’s. There are going to be all sorts of wealthy elites there, and if there is one thing that elites love it is the romanticised idea of the working man. You might not be down some mine, slaving at a coal face, but you get out there in the field, getting dirty and greasy fixing enormous generators.”

            “God, this sounds like the beginning to an industrially-themed porno.”

            Kimball managed to keep a straight face as she continued. “These people, who have probably never picked a spanner up in their lives, will eat that shit up, trust me.”

            “Boss, are you _sure_ though that you want me there?” Tucker said. “Final chance to back out. I don’t want to staying up to in the early hours of tomorrow morning, beating at your pillow and wailing ‘ _Why did I invite Tucker? What was I thinking?_ ’”

            To this, Kimball rolled her eyes, but the corners of her mouth did slide up into a grin despite herself. “Look, I want a senior member of the company, and I want someone from the London Office as I think it would look good. A lot of these people are going to be old-fashioned conservative types who voted to leave the EU seventeen years ago – they won’t want some filthy continental from the Paris office. Altogether this immediately rules out Palomo and Jensen and the like – they haven’t worked here long enough. I think I’d rather be force-fed bees than have Grif attend; Simmons is too awkward and anxious in big social situations like that; Caboose is…. well, Caboose is Caboose; Sarge will inevitably get into a fight with someone over god-knows what and Donut will end up making some terrible innuendo-related faux pas, I just know it. That leaves you.”

            “So basically what you are saying is that you are scraping the bottom of the barrel.”

            “Yes,” Kimball deadpanned. “Yes I am.”

            “Well, if needs must,” Tucker said, and pocketed the invitation. “See you in May!”

            Kimball stood and began to pack away her binder back into her satchel. “Good! You’ll need to get a suit for your synth too…. Wash, isn’t it?”

            Tucker stiffened slightly. “I’m sorry?”

            “It’s BYOS – ‘Bring Your Own Synth’,” Kimball said, and seeing the confusion on Tucker’s face, quickly expanded upon that. “No, this place definitely isn’t going to need help in terms of catering – it’s just so the guests can show off their fabulously expensive synthetics and that the women can show off their designer purchases not just on themselves but on their robotic attendants too.” She wrinkled her nose. “It’s tacky, I know, but it’s in vogue at the moment.”

            “I’m not sure Wash is going to have much to show off,” Tucker said, not missing the enormous levels of irony contained with that statement.

            The one-on-one meeting was clearly over as abruptly as it had been called, and Kimball exited the conference room, followed by Tucker. “Don’t worry, having an ordinary synth dressed in a suit from John Lewis will probably add to that ‘working man charm’.”

            “I resent that,” Tucker grumbled.

            Kimball looked over her shoulder and laughed. “As someone who has had to put up with that sort of shit for ten years – welcome to my world Tucker.”

            She made towards her office, and Tucker began to head back to his workstation, but he spotted Kimball waving at him from across the room a moment later. She gave him a thumbs up and quickly typed out a message that pinged onto Tucker’s lenses a moment later.

_Cheers Tucker._

            _Lol, np. Any time._

 

 

            At his workstation, which consisted of a large array of all-in-one computer screens that had the processing power to run the design and simulation software that Tucker’s job called for, he sat for a moment pondering the invitation before trying to focus on his work again.

            Except there _wasn’t_ any work for him to be doing. He had spent the last few weeks trying to find a viable way of retrofitting some of Chorus Energy’s older wind turbines with something that would muffle a particularly noisy party of their internal machinery, and had submitted his findings to Kimball and Sarge a few hours earlier. As neither had given him a new task, really he should be taking the initiative and finding something on his own to occupy his time, but the lazy atmosphere in the office was infectious. Besides, he wanted to a put a matter that had been burning away a corner of his mind for days to rest.

Tucker summoned the virtual keyboard of his somatic, and instantaneously a floating array of keys appeared in front of him.

            ‘ _david whistler_ ,’ he typed, feeling guilty.

            Tucker _knew_ Grey thought speaking to the family was wrong. He knew it, and he still couldn’t help himself. If there was a chance of them knowing anything, than it was an opportunity worth pursuing.

            Most of the results were for some minor provincial politician in Canada, or a painting restoration company based in Lincolnshire. There was even a random porn result.

            ‘ _david whistler soldier 2022’_

Again, the results were unhelpful. Google had interpreted Tucker’s request as a misspelling of _Soldier 2020_ which was some Arizona-based hard rock band. Even when he corrected the search engine, what little useful links that remained were all to unrelated ‘Davids’ who happened to be connected to soldiers in the most tenuous ways. _Former Prime Minister David Cameron visits troops…. David Oyelowo’s portrayal of a soldier…. David Beckham visits soldiers… David Guetta…. David Bowie…. David Tennant…_

            “What you doing?” Donut asked, coming and slapping Tucker on the shoulder cheerfully. Tucker jumped violently.

            “Jesus, Donut!”

            “Sorry!” Donut said with an apologetic laugh. He sat down at the work station next to Tucker, idly spinning around in the large office chair. “I hadn’t realised you were so involved in whatever you’re doing on your lenses.”

            “I’m just, uh….”

            “Slacking off?”

            Tucker shifted some of his open tabs so he could give his friend a conspiratorial look unobstructed. “I might be.”

            Donut shrugged. “Not like we have much to do for these next few days anyway. We’re only here for appearances, which is fine by me because I look _fabulous_.”

            “Standard procedure,” Tucker noted, and glanced back at the fruitless search results. “Donut, if I wanted to find someone online, what would be the best way to go about it?”

            Donut raised an expertly plucked eyebrow. “Hmm? Who are you searching for?”

            “I’d rather not say.”

            The eyebrow rose even further. “Not even to me? Your bosom friend?”

            “Look, you’ve got to stop with the _Anne of Green Gables_ references. And no, I’m going to continue to be a secretive motherfucker.”

            Donut sighed dramatically. “Well, if there’s nothing in it for me….”

            “What would you even get out of it if I did tell you?”

            “Why, gossip of course!” Donut said. His eyes practically let off a twinkle of mischief as he spoke.

            “Okay, I’ll buy you some lunch from Pret a Manger or something tomorrow, provided I don’t have to explain who I am looking for.”

            “Deal,” Donut said at once, knowing a good bargain when he saw it. “Now, what have you already tried?”

             “Just a straightforward google search, both as a phrase and as individual words, alongside keywords relevant to when I knew them,” Tucker said. He had been trying to avoid lying to Donut, but he was quickly becoming aware that this would be impossible if he was to seek the other man’s help.

            “Have you tried dating the search?” prompted Donut.

            Tucker raised a finger and waggled it encouragingly in his friend’s direction. “No, I haven’t….”

             Despite Donut’s help, looking for results around 2019-2024, using more keywords and limiting search results both to Britain and to certain kinds of website remained a futile exercise. David Whistler had either lived such a mundane life that he had never warranted any kind of online attention, or Grey had been right and someone had largely purged him from the internet. After ten minutes, Tucker rocked back in his own chair, huffing with aggravation.

            “This isn’t working.”

            Donut, in contrast to Tucker, had remained his usual chipper self. “Nonsense! We just have exhausted the easy options. If you’re born in the West after 1985 then you’re going to have an online presence, guaranteed. We’ll find something that will locate this person you are after! Now, was he involved in any schools, any companies?”

            Tucker sighed, decided it would be safe to reveal a little to Donut about David Whistler. “I know he went to the University of Exeter, and that he was in the army around 2019-2021.”

            “Well, the army is definitely not an option, so let’s focus on the university,” Donut said, clearly scribbling down some more ideas.

            “The uni won’t have any of his information online,” Tucker said gloomily. “It’s all off-limits thanks to data protection laws.”

            The two of them tried anyway, probing around student-related news from the time ranging from gossip to articles about sports’ teams achievements and charity events. David remained stubbornly elusive. Out of desperation, they tried the army too, although as Donut had predicted, there was even less content to go on, particularly as much of the original British army websites had been removed or migrated when the European Union had federalised and the armies of the member states had been combined into a single force.

            Frustrated, Tucker minimised the floating windows in his vision and stared out of the window at the tree-lined square that Chorus Energy’s London office was adjacent to. It was raining outside, droplets streaking down the glass and making the street lights out in the wintry December darkness twinkle.

            Tucker wondered what it was like to be forgotten. It was obviously clear that David had been an ordinary man, so there wasn’t very much for the wider world to collectively forget in the first place, but Tucker liked to imagine that when he died he would leave little momentos of his existence beyond just his family’s memories of him. Not having much faith in anti-aging technology reaching the great unwashed masses any time soon, Tucker didn’t imagine he would be remembered beyond Junior’s own children, but at least his name would survive in company and university records, in his sprawling online presence, in some of his minor contributions to wind turbine technology. There would be photographs hanging in his school of him in his sports teams, recordings of him from when he was younger, his name on various crowd-funding contributor lists and those visitor record books you get in those grand old country houses that his parents had dragged him around as a child. Tucker knew that obviously David Whistler would have left behind similar obscure traces, but the extent of which the man had been erased from easily-accessible public records made it feel like he had never existed at all.

 _But then, a hell of a lot of people have been forgotten_ , Tucker reflected. The dazzling majority of humans who had ever lived had been forgotten, whether it was due to them living before the advent of writing or simply never doing anything noteworthy in their age. It was only now had the long-term storage of information become available to most of the population, and even then there was now so much information that people were simply drowned out and forgotten amongst the sheer volume of it.

            _Perhaps I’m really not meant to find him. Maybe it’s the natural order of things that everyone is eventually forgotten and the universe has decided that time has come for David._

“Was this guy you’re looking for posh?” Donut said suddenly.     

            “What?” Tucker said, snapping out of his meditative glumness and twirling around on his chair, frowning at the curious question. “I don’t know.”

            “Do you know when he was born?”

            Tucker gestured with his hands, and the image he had taken of Emily’s tablet appeared. “10th January 1998.”

            “Right,” Donut said, a renewed enthusiasm in his voice. “I have an idea.”

            “What?”

            Donut barely looked up from where his fingers were dancing across, from Tucker’s point of view, an invisible keyboard in the air in front of him. “Well, I know that Exeter’s one of those very ‘rah’ universities right? Like, it’s got a lot of posh people there like Oxbridge and UCL and Durham right?”

            “Right…?” Tucker thought of the woman, David’s sister, which he had met outside Trafalgar Square. Her voice wouldn’t have been out of place on an old BBC radio broadcast. “I guess, yeah, his family must be kind of posh.”

            “Well, what do posh people absolutely obsess about doing?”

            Tucker’s mind was blank. “Uh…. what? Donut, I’m as middle-class as they come, as bourgeoisie as fuck. I’d literally be the first in the gulag if there was a communist revolution tomorrow.”

            Donut made a grandiose gesture, and a second later a weblink sent from Donut’s somatic computer appeared in the top-right hand corner of Tucker’s vision. Tucker opened it.

            “ _The Telegraph_ web archive,” Tucker said, reading aloud the title of the webpage.

            “ _Birth announcements_ Tucker, _birth announcements_. Posh people love forking out €250 to have a little blurb about their baby being born in the national newspapers, despite the fact nobody else bloody cares!”

            Tucker wanted to say that it he still didn’t know if David was posh, let alone that his family would subscribe to such nonsense as birth announcements, but Donut was giving him an excited, expectant look. Hesitantly, and trying to stop his hands from shaking too much, he typed in ‘ _David Whistler 1998’_ into the search bar near the top of the page.

            And there it was.

            ‘ _WHISTLER_. _On the 10 th January 1998, to Emma (née Peake) and Alexander, a son, David Theodore Matthew, a brother for Octavia and Ariadne.’_

“I’ve found him,” Tucker breathed.

            Donut let out a low whoop, albeit still one loud enough that had several other members of the office look over in alarm. “You’ve found him?”

            “Yeah! Shit, I know his parents now!” Tucker said, his chest suddenly feeling tight with anticipation. He began to type out ‘ _Alexander Whistler_ ’ into the search bar when he noticed that Donut’s expression had cooled, and his friend was now giving Tucker a more thoughtful gaze.

            “What?”

            “Why are you hunting for this guy? You don’t seem to know much about him, so he’s clearly not someone you’ve known personally.”

            “Hey, we agreed I’d buy you lunch tomorrow if you don’t ask any questions,” Tucker said easily.

            “That wasn’t quite the agreement-“

            “Donut.”

            “Okay, okay,” Donut said, standing with a pout. “I’ll take my company elsewhere.” He stood, discarding the pages of notes he had been scribbling away ideas on, and made to wander off to bother someone else.

            “Lunch tomorrow!” Tucker called after him. He got an unenthusiastic thumbs up in response, after which Tucker returned his attentions to the matter at hand.

            _Alexander Whistler_ provided little, but _Emma Whistler_ gave a Wikipedia page detailing, even with only great brevity, the life and work of a retired high-flying London lawyer, and Tucker knew that was all he needed. With this, he could speak to the family, and via the family, he had a chance of discovering who had created Wash.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I was feeling inspired so this chapter has come out much faster than usual! Hopefully that makes up for any prior delays! :D
> 
> Thank you to CerealMonster15 for helping to beta this chapter, and thank you for all the lovely comments everyone has been leaving! They give me life, I'm telling you.
> 
> I've been thinking a little about how this fic is going to work with the upcoming 14th Season of RvB. Obviously this fic is wildly non-canonical, so it would be absurd to say 'Pre-Season 14' as that would imply it was compliant to Season 13, but I feel if we discover more about Wash (such as the name of his sisters) as part of any character development, I will not retroactively change Ones and Zeroes. Besides, it's reached a strange stage where fic!Wash = canon Wash; fic!David = half canon/half OC. I'm well aware of general audience reluctance when it comes to OCs, but I can assure you that I'll try to keep them to a minimum.


	30. Chapter 30

            “Mate, you’re going to hurt your back doing that,” Tucker groused as Wash lifted the bar, 40 kg weights and all, using only one hand, as if he was fetching a fallen book off the floor. “You’ll slip a disc or something, even if, I don’t know, your discs in question happen to be made of titanium or some shit.”

            “I’m pretty sure my back is covered in the warranty you got when you bought me,” Wash said, flashing him a grin as he manoeuvred the bar onto his back in the way that Tucker had demonstrated.

            Tucker glanced around the rest of the gym. “Still, if anyone of the gym bros here see you doing that they’re going to have an aneurysm.”

            “My form good?”

            “Your knees need to be pointing outwards. Sort of – not that much!” Tucker stooped to adjust the position of the synth’s foot. This meant he had an excellent opportunity to inspect Wash’s legs up close, and although Tucker didn’t find this a particularly noteworthy or sexy area of the body in anyone, he had to admit that Wash did have _very_ pleasantly muscled legs.

             “Like that.” Standing and stepping backwards, Tucker evaluated Wash’s pose. “Okay, seems good. Now lead with your hips.”

             The synth squatted, and Tucker was satisfied to see that even graceful and elegant machines looked a little ridiculous performing the exercise, even if Wash’s expression only portrayed puzzlement rather than any signs of exertion.

             “Uh…. I can kind of see how this might be considered _exercise_ ….”

             Tucker refused to rise to the bait. “Whatever….”

             Wash did not stop after one however, instead beginning to squat up and down rapidly. “Two, three, four, five….”

             “Okay, okay, I get the picture…”

             “Eight, nine, ten, eleven…..”

             “ _Stop_.”

              Tucker punched the synth’s arm when he eventually set down and stepped away from the barbell after twenty or so continuous squats. “That was only one set, so don’t look too smug.”

              “Do you want me to do more? I’m sure I could crank out another forty.”

              “You’re a dick.” Tucker said, moving onto the nearby bench press. Being one o’clock in the afternoon on a weekday and located in an area where there were not that many terminally unemployed, the gym was quiet. Of its current patrons, most were retired or ‘yummy mummy’ types using the machines down the far end, with only four other men and women in the weights section at all. Tucker was particularly glad of this fact when Wash idly picked off a 10 kg plate from a rack and, glancing around to ensure nobody was looking, tossed it skywards.

             “Stop it!” Tucker hissed. “Someone will see you!”

             Catching the weight, Wash made another surreptitious sweep of the room, finding the whole situation thoroughly amusing. “It’s fine! Nobody is looking in our direction.” He tossed the plate up again, high enough this time that it nearly touched the gym’s panelled ceiling. He was making it look like it weighed the same as a tennis ball.

            “What if there are security cameras catching this all on film?” Tucker insisted.

            “I’ve already hacked the gym’s system,” Wash said in a deliberately disinterested tone. Turning, he pointed towards a tiny white camera stuck to a wall a few metres away that Tucker had not paid any attention to previously. “That’s aimed at the running machines. I checked before we arrived.”

            Tucker breathed an exaggerated sigh of relief. “And here I was wondering what had happened to your old paranoid self….”

            This wasn’t entirely truthful. Tucker _was_ wondering what had gotten into Wash. Most of the time the synth would barely leave the house out of fear of being detected, but for the past couple of days he was acting unusually…. _brazen_. Tucker knew he had drunkenly implored him to live a little, but he hadn’t actually anticipated Wash to take any of that on board.

            “Do you think I could juggle these things?”

            “I will drag you back to that recycling centre if I have to,” Tucker warned, in the same way he spoke to Junior when he was being naughty. “You aren’t impressing me.”

            Although this was said with a good deal of bonhomie, the effect of it still was rather striking. Wash’s ears went pink and he dropped his gaze, abashedly replacing the plate he had been tossing around back on the rack he had taken them from. “Yeah, you’re right, I’m being silly.” Clearly eager to move onto a new topic, he asked, “Do you have any gym buddies you regularly work out with? You never seem to mention any.”

            “I go with Kai occasionally,” Tucker said, speaking slowly as he began to lift and lower the weight over his chest, “but she’s a fitness instructor anyway so doesn’t really need to go outside her work hours. Kimball lives too far away to see regularly, and I know Sarge is a bit of a fitness freak but he doesn’t trust me because I’m a filthy blue.”

            “I’m sorry?”

            Tucker chuckled. “A stupid old thing from the office. Our boss, from back before Kimball took over, separated everyone into two teams – the Red Team and the Blue Team, to increase competition and therefore productivity or some nonsense. Sarge took it to heart in a major way and even since Kimball removed the system as like one of her first acts as CEO, he still doesn’t trust former Blue Team members like Caboose and me.”

            “He struck me as the type who would be weird like that, back when I met him.”

            Tucker blinked. “Oh yeah, I forgot you’ve actually been around him…. even if the OS was in charge at the time. Back when I took you to fix that wind turbine.”

            Wash made a face. “That bloody OS having a meltdown on the top of that thing was not one of my fonder memories.”

            “I’ve been meaning to mention that for like ever,” Tucker said, reaching twelve reps and heaving the bar back onto its holder, “You mentioned York would like that place, or something.”

            Wash smiled. “York’s the kind of guy who loves big machinery. Tanks, trains, passenger jets – he loves all that nitty-gritty industrial stuff that he can poke around inside and take apart and put back together again. I wasn’t really concentrating, sitting on the top of that turbine, and remember thinking ‘ _Oh, he’d love it up here_ ’ only in some weird software glitch for it to actually come out of my mouth.”

            “What’s happened to that awful OS? Have you deleted it?” Tucker asked, raising an eyebrow. He was very much aware of how much he was perspiring, and tugged his damp shirt off his stomach, hoping Wash did not notice.

            “Oh no, it’s still there,” Wash said, rubbing his chin. “I’ve managed to effectively lock it up for good – it won’t be coming back any time soon. It’s weird…. I don’t really want to delete it. It’s like killing a bee – the poor thing didn’t do anything wrong.”

            “But it’s just some software. It has no capacity to think or feel.”

            Wash gave Tucker a level look. “I can imagine the same accusation being levelled at me.”

            “You have a point,” Tucker admitted.

            Just as he was about to get started on his second set, a green phone icon appeared in his vision. The caller was a registered company, his lenses told him, ‘ _Devon Student Properties_ ’.

            _Just what I wanted_ , Tucker thought, and hastily shimmied off the bench and to his feet, waving a hand at Wash. “Sorry, I’ve got to take this call real quick. Entertain yourself for a bit,”

            Wash laughed. “Sure, I’ll be here when you get back.”

            Tucker, walking quickly in the direction of the gym’s reception, accepted the call.

            “Hi, this is Devon Student Properties,” a man’s voice came down the phone. “We’ve had a Freedom of Information request from a Mr Lavernius Tucker, concerning the tenancy history of one of our properties. All respondence has been requested to be via telephone, rather than email.”

            Following the discovery of the names of David Whistler’s family, it had been immediately apparent to Tucker that simply rocking up at their door asking question was not an option. He would need a cover story. A decent idea about what that cover story was going to be was fairly forthcoming: that he was a friend of David’s from university; but that in turn raised its own issues. Tucker didn’t consider himself uncharismatic, but he was not naturally devious either, and trying to think of all the potential questions that might catch him out as an imposter was difficult. He imagined that just knowing all the information he did now – David’s age, appearance and degree – might just be enough to convince the Whistlers that he was a previously unmentioned friend from his course, but Tucker couldn’t help but see it as too risky. There was other information he needed to find out about the man first before he dared approach the family, and this call was a part of that.

            “Yes, this is Lavernius Tucker speaking, and yes, that is correct.”

            “Could you please confirm your date of birth, current address and European ID number?” the man said brusquely. Tucker did so, and there was a moment of silence down the line as the information was clearly double-checked.

            “Hello Mr Tucker, my name is Greg, how may I be of assistance today?”

            Tucker cleared his throat, quickly bringing up the correct information he had previously found trawling through internet records. By now, he had exited the gym and was standing in the small carpark out the front, comfortably away from any potential eavesdroppers. “As specified under 2027 Land Registration Act, could I please have you confirm that a Ms Florence Whistler rented your property in 2022?”

            Greg clearly was more used to having students calling to report faults or complaints rather than Freedom of Information requests, and there was a protracted silence from the other end of the phone. The act was generally used to deal with tax avoidance, not tracking down former tenants of student houses. Tucker paced around the carpark impatiently.

            “Well,” the man said at length, “Uh, as the 2027 act says, we can confirm a woman by that name rented that property, yes.”

            Tucker felt his pulse quicken. “And would you be able to confirm if a Mr David Whistler rented the same property as well? Perhaps a few years previously?”

            It was a long shot. Through David’s parents, Tucker had discovered both the names and Facebook profiles of the entire Whistler family, of which one, his younger sister Florence’s, was entirely open to public scrutiny. She had followed in her elder brother’s footsteps and attended the same university, and through a handful of decade-old geotags, it had become apparent where she had lived in her second and third year. Tucker figured her landlord must have been decent if she had stayed with them for two years, and therefore it wasn’t improbable to believe that David might have used the same letting agency too.

            Tucker’s heart sank therefore when the man replied, “No, sorry, it doesn’t appear as if there was a David Whistler living in that property….”

            _Shit._

            “….but, we do appear to have a David Whistler who rented another one of our properties.”

            Tucker silently punched the air in triumph. “Ah! Between 2017 and 2019, right?”

            “That’s right.”

            “Great! Well, uh, could you tell me that property address, please?”

            Greg paused. “I’m not sure if I am really allowed to reveal…. uh…. general information about tenants. I can only confirm if they have lived in certain properties.”

            Tucker sighed at the sheer bureaucratic absurdity of the system. “Okay, well, what properties your letting agency manages are public information. I’m just going to have to go down the list of all the places you rent out to students in Exeter and ask if this guy lived there, and it’s going to waste a hell of a lot of time.”

            “Well, uh…. okay, the guy I have listed her rented out the property closest to St David’s, the train station.”

            Tucker, who already had a map open on his lenses, read out the address, and Greg, audibly uncomfortable, confirmed it. With that, Tucker wished the man goodbye and ended the call.

            The feeling of triumph cooled quickly.

            _Time to talk to the family. Time to lie to their faces._

            He could continue to search for more random details about David’s life, in order to weave an even more convincing tale that he could spin to the Whistlers, but his ‘research’ was beginning to leave a sour taste in his mouth.

            _You’re stalking them,_ a small voice in his mind told him. _And are you really doing this for Wash? Or to satisfy your own curiosity?_

            Tucker gave himself a little shake. _Of course I’m doing it for Wash. There are people pursuing the synths, and speaking to his family offers a chance to discover who those pursuers are and how to deal with them._

Tucker had to repeat that to himself, but he didn’t believe it.

            _Stalking. Stalking. Stalking._

            Tucker began to walk back to the gym, messaging Wash that he would be with him again shortly.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you to Littlefists for helping me out with this chapter!


	31. Chapter 31

            The Whistler family home was a small mansion deep in the Wiltshire countryside. Hidden down a winding gravel driveway overshadowed by the bare canopies of the surrounding trees, it appeared quite suddenly as Tucker’s auto rounded the final bend. It was Georgian in design, and indeed was originally from that period or else a brilliant modern replica, with pale red brickwork; grey stone quoins, pilasters and entrance porch; slate roof and white windows, gables and front door. Despite it being winter, the landscaped flowerbeds out the front were still looking verdant, and growing over much of the building was a climbing wisteria that had been, appropriately for the season, lightly hung with twinkling golden Christmas lights. Of the rest of the grounds, there was nothing to see, as a high yew hedge bordered either side of the main façade.

            The auto came to a stop near the front door and, upon a request from Tucker, automatically shut itself down rather than drive off to find other customers. It was very quiet after it did so, something that was even more noticeable when Tucker opened the door and stepped out. Far from both any city and any motorway, the only sounds was the gurgling of an ornamental fountain hidden amongst the rosebushes and the cawing of a crow in one of the nearby trees.

            Tucker forced himself to take a deep breath.

            _I’m here now. I’m invested. I’m doing this for Wash._

            He approached the front door and knocked a large polished brass knocker in its centre, before sheepishly realising there was an electric doorbell to his left.

            He waited.

            A diminutive woman opened the door; pale, slim and with blonde hair turning sandy with age. She was dressed well, wearing a white blouse and plum trousers, over which she had draped a cashmere shawl the colour of ivory. Tucker’s own mother liked to wear a similar style.

           “Hello?” she asked hesitantly. She had a smooth, received-pronunciation accent that conveyed without a doubt the sort of upbringing and education she had had. “Can I help you?”

           “Mrs Whistler?”

           “Speaking.” She eyed the flowers Tucker was holding in his hand. “You aren’t a friend of Octavia’s are you?”

            “My name is Henry Tucker,” Tucker lied. ‘Lavernius’ was too memorable of a name, considering the tale he wanted to create. “I was at Exeter with your son, David.”

            For a split second, Tucker could see the awfulness of being reminded of someone who had been lost to you, the yearning and the helplessness of knowing you would never see them again, before the woman recovered herself. “I see. I’m afraid… I’m afraid David never mentioned you.”

            “I’m sorry. We were only friends for a brief period in our final year, before he left to join the army. Regretfully we went our separate ways, and only upon bumping into a mutual friend recently did I learn that he had…. been killed in action.”

            The woman gave a stiff nod, not looking at Tucker’s face. “I see.”

            “I just wanted to come and pay my respects.”

            The woman looked at him then in the eye, and Tucker forced himself to hold her gaze. Even as his brain began to think that she would close the door on him, she nodded again and stepped aside. “Please, come in and have a cup of tea.”

            “Thank you.”

            The house was even larger inside than it had appeared from outside with corridors of polished wood and tasteful wall hangings leading off in all directions. Through one open door Tucker saw a smart living room, in the corner of which was a tall Christmas tree gilded with all manner of decorations and surrounded by presents. Mrs Whistler led Tucker down one of these corridors into a large kitchen of pale oak counters and flagstone floors. By a large aga oven, an ancient looking dachshund eyed Tucker wearily but otherwise didn’t move, content to keep dozing in the warmth.

            “Let me put those in some water and I can put the kettle on,” the woman said, and Tucker let her take the flowers off him and place them in a glass vase she took from under the sink. They looked beautiful. “Have you come far?”

              “Not too far, just from London. You have a lovely home,” Tucker commented. There was a pleasant, aromatic scent in the room that was likely attributable to the row of potted herbs sitting along one of the nearest countertops, even if it was mixed in with the earthier smell of dog.

              The woman pulled out two mugs from a glass cabinet. “Thank you. The law has been good to me and publishing good to my husband.”

              “You’re a lawyer?” Tucker enquired politely, standing near the threshold to the room.

              “I was, but I’m retired now. Environmental. Do you work yourself Mr Tucker?”

              “I’m an engineer, working for Chorus Energy.”

              The woman smiled in recognition. “That is a name I’m familiar with.”

              “Oh? Would you know Vanessa Kimball?”

              Mrs Whistler waved her hand. “No, no, my last case for them was over fifteen years ago. The staff I knew would have long since left.” She indicated towards the large, plain wooden table surrounded by chairs, which stood next to French windows looking out onto a stone terrace and neatly tended lawn. “Please, take a seat.”

              Tucker did so. There was a pause, the two of them watching the electric kettle slowly beginning to rumble on its stand. The conversation was polite, perfunctory, but there was an unbearable, undertone to it all.

             “Mrs Whistler,” Tucker eventually said, his voice slow and deliberate. “I don’t want to cause any undue distress. If…. If you do not wish to talk about your son, I understand.”

             The woman took a long time to reply, her gaze fixed on the kettle. “It’s been a while since we’ve had any of his friends come.”

             Tucker didn’t know how best to respond to that. “I regret I found out as late as I did.”

            “How did you meet?” Mrs Whistler asked, turning to Tucker, “In David’s Sociology course?”

            This was a blatant test, Tucker realised at once. _She has doubts as to whether I really knew him_. This was not a surprise; the press had always been fairly toxic when it came to snooping around the lives of dead servicepeople, including pretending to be friends and relatives. Mrs Whistler was taking a precaution.

            “I thought David did Politics and Economics?”

            The woman’s face was unreadable. “Yes, of course. I muddle David’s degree with his sister’s. And were you near where he lived in the city in his third year?”

            “I was near the train station, yes,” Tucker said, silently thanking his previous self for all the hours he had spent researching this dead man.

            “Indeed. Do you remember what he was like?”

            A little trickle of fear went down Tucker’s spine, and he tried to describe what _Wash_ was like, considering he was the closest example he had to David. “He was…. kind, and funny. A sarcastic sense of humour. Very… driven. Prone to moments of anger.”

            Mrs Whistler’s mouth twitched in a sort of fond half-smile, and Tucker knew that whatever personality the biological man had once possessed, it had been copied successfully into the nano-gel and graphene processors of his AI ghost.

            “That sounds like David.”

            Tucker felt his fingers gliding to his neck to rub the triangle of skin between his collar, a tic he found he often made when lying. He pulled it away, instead knotting his hands together and keeping them firmly on his lap. “I’m afraid we fell out of contact once he left. I wasn’t even aware he had joined the army.”

            The kettle began to sing, and Mrs Whistler took from one of the overhead cupboards two white jars decorated with a minimalist floral pattern. “Earl Grey or English Breakfast?”

            “Oh, um, Earl Grey please.”

            She seemed in no hurry, placing a teabag from one of the jars in each mug before filling them with steaming water. Tucker sat awkwardly, forcing himself not to access anything on his lenses.

            “Milk?”

            “Yes, please.”

            By the aga, the dachshund sneezed loudly, waking itself up a little before giving Tucker another wary glance and dozing off back to sleep.

            Mrs Whistler sat down at the end of the table next to Tucker, and along with the two mugs of tea, she carried a large tablet which she passed to Tucker.

            On it was a photograph of Wash.

            Well, of course not Wash. David. A man Tucker had theoretically never known, but felt like he had known so closely. He was reminded of a story from a scientific non-fiction book he had once read many years ago, which detailed a sufferer of prosopagnosia – someone who was ‘face blind’. Just as the man in the story insisted that while his loved ones possessed the same face, they were not the same people, Tucker felt like he was looking down at an imposter – a fraud – who was simply pretending to be Wash.

            This David seemed like an ordinary man, compared to the perfect, machine-wrought beauty of Wash. His face wasn’t perfectly symmetrical, didn’t conform to the psychologically established ‘ideal ratios’ that had long been used in synth manufacturing to maximise their aestheticism. His nose was too big, and crooked in a way that made it look as if it had been broken. His eyes did not possess that same vivid intensity. He carried more flesh on his bones. His teeth, visible in his smile, were a little skewed. His face was covered in freckles, and he had a ruddy, slightly blotchy complexion compared to Wash’s uniform, warm tone. Around David’s mouth and jaw there was the dark shadow of a beard that Wash was unable to grow.

            This David had a family. He was surrounded on either side by younger women, clearly his sisters. He seemed relaxed, jocular, happy. He was dressed in military khakis, with the British flag displayed proudly on the chest, revealing the images’ age even though it had shown no decay in its digitised form.

            Tucker had a lump in his throat, and he could feel his diaphragm tense and hard within his torso.

            “That was taken just after he graduated in June,” Mrs Whistler was saying. “We tried to tell him not to enlist, not when he had so many other options, but his mind was set, and he wouldn’t listen. He went into basic training in the autumn of 2019, and was deployed in 2020 to Syria as part of the UN’s peacekeeping taskforce.”

            “When did he die?”

            The room – the entire world – seemed very still as Mrs Whistler spoke.

            “29th of March, 2021. The officers came knocking on my door four days later. David’s VTOL had been shot down near the Iraqi border. The coffin came home to Wootton Bassett a month later. The crash….”

            She was silent for a minute.

            “….The crash had been violent. We never saw his body.”

            _Those bastards_ , Tucker thought, a cold rage engulfing his bones, _those bastards mutilated his body so much his family couldn’t even see his face one final time. Oh fuck you, whoever did this, fuck you._

“I’m very sorry,” Tucker managed.

            She pressed a button along the side of the tablet and the screen faded to blackness. “It was a long time ago, Mr Tucker.”

            “No, please…” Tucker said abruptly, and reactivated the screen. “Please…. I…. I want to see more. If you are willing. I just…. want to see him a little more, before I go.”

            Mrs Whistler stared at Tucker hard for a moment, before she reached out and pressed her finger against the fingerprint scanner along the back of the tablet. It unlocked, and the photo of David reappeared.  

            “Scroll to the left,” the woman suggested quietly, and when Tucker did so there was another image of David. He was surrounded by friends sitting at a table under a marquee. It was clearly the summer, and in the background there was a barbeque sitting out on the lawn. “That was his 21st birthday party.”

            Another picture, this time of David on holiday. He wore only swimming trunks and aviator glasses, and was next to a slim, attractive young man the same age. They were at a beach with pale golden sands and a seemingly endless array of multi-coloured umbrellas, beyond which was the wide azure expanse of the sea. “On a holiday he made with his boyfriend, to Crete,” Mrs Whistler explained.

            And so it went on. Picture after picture of David – each a fragment of a life the synthetic Wash had been deprived of. Birthday parties; formal dances; family weddings; time with his grandparents; in his school uniform; in his university halls; at his graduation ceremony; in visits to Amsterdam and Prague and Seville. There were even shots in clubs and bars and at pre-drinks at someone’s shabby student flat, all collected not because of who else they contained or their subject matter, but simply because they contained David, and these photos were all the Whistlers had to remember him by.

            Tucker could feel his resolved crumbling, feel his confidence crack at the sight of these photos. _Remember what you came here to do._

            “Mrs Whistler,” he said awkwardly, “this might be an unusual question, but was David contacted by anyone in the weeks leading up to his death?”

            “I don’t follow…. Contacted by whom?”

            Tucker flexed his toes within his shoes – the only expression of his nerves he could perform without giving himself away. “Mrs Whistler, when I was trying to find what had become of David, I stumbled across this logo a couple of times.” He sent the reproduction of the Project Freelancer logo he had drawn from memory to the tablet, and showed it to the woman. “You wouldn’t recognise it, would you?”

            Mrs Whistler shook her head. “No. Where was this logo?”

            Tucker swallowed. “Just a few news websites. I can try and find them, if you like.”

            “Do you have any reason to be concerned by this logo?”

            Tucker felt his armpits and back growing damp with sweat. “I….. There’s some…. I don’t want to drag up old pain, but there have been conspiracy theories floating around. There was very little about David online but what there is…. it’s just stuff on forums really, but there is superstition.”

            “Superstition over what?”

            “The circumstances of his death,” Tucker said lamely.

            “You didn’t know my son, did you? Not really.”

            The lie rose in Tucker’s throat automatically, the neurones in his brain firing away to think of the most believable excuses, but Mrs Whistler’s desolate expression made him stall, leaving him silent.

            “No,” he said quietly.

            “Why are you in my house? Why are you asking about David?” she said, without anger. There didn’t need to be anger in her tone, Tucker was already torn up simply from the guilt and shame of being caught out in such a terrible lie.

            “I…. I need to find answers.”

            “Do you work for one of the newspapers?”

            “No!” Tucker said immediately. “No. I promise you, Mrs Whistler, what…. What I’ve seen, I’ll keep to myself. I…. Mrs Whistler, I’ve seen documents that imply…. something might have happened to your son before or after his death. Something that has serious ramifications today.”

            “What ramifications?”

            “I…. uh.... Mrs Whistler, I can’t say…. not until I find out more…. There’s something at work here that is much, much bigger than me. Something that tangles up David and I imagine other soldiers who died in the Middle East Crisis.”

            The woman took another sip of her tea, and looked out of the window again. The tablet, untouched by either of them for a minute or so, went dark on the table.

            “Mr Tucker, have you ever lost someone close to you?” she said at length, dispassionately.

            “Yes. My wife, nearly two years ago.”

            “Than, Mr Tucker, I imagine what you know the workings of grief. I buried my son and wept at his grave. I have made my peace with it.”

            Tucker thought of his wife’s grave. She’d wanted to be buried back in Germany, in her hometown in Bavaria. He and Junior went to see it every time they visited her parents.

            “I…. Mrs Whistler….” Tucker began, but stalled. “If you could-“

            “Please,” she said, her voice becoming harder now. She still didn’t look directly at him. “Leave my house, Mr Tucker.”

            Tucker stood. “Thank you Mrs Whistler, for the tea.”

           

  

            Tucker pulled the auto over only ten minutes after it had exited the Whistler’s drive. It stopped itself on the verge at the summit of a hill, and he left it idling as he walked over to a tumble-down fence that used to mark the boundary to a nearby field, his shoes crunching on the stony chalk ground.

            Economics and environmental regulation had driven the owner of the field to abandon the land to nature, and where once would have been pasture was now a wild meadow, thick with lank waist-high grasses and weeds waiting for the spring. The view was still lovely however, the sun making a rare appearance as it descended towards the western horizon and illuminating the rolling downland in fuzzy golden light.

            “Shit,” Tucker swore to nobody in particular, scrubbing at his eyes.

            He lent down and picked up a rock.

            “ _Shit!_ ” Tucker repeated, the word coming out an ugly sob. He flung the rock as hard as he could, trying to trace its trajectory across the sky, but his vision blurred with tears and he never saw it land.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you to CerealMonster15 for helping beta this chapter, and thank you to everyone leaving comments and kudos on the work! It means a lot to me.
> 
> Oh man, I would totally submit this chapter to the RvB angst war if I could, but sadly from what I understand of it, a reader shouldn't have to read through 80,000+ words to get to the angsty bit first. It was a LOT of fun to write, regardless.
> 
> Also, notes on the text: an 'aga' is a type of large, fancy multi-oven.... thing..... You see it a lot in fancy country homes and what-not. It's always on in order to keep the kitchen in question warm (hence why the dog is schnuggled up next to it).


	32. Chapter 32

              Tucker wiped away a stray trickle of sweat beginning to form at the end of one of his eyebrows as he stood panting at the top of the hill in Reagent’s Park that had become his favourite spot to visit when doing his early-morning runs. It was cold, which was fairly unsurprisingly what with it being Christmas Eve and one of the shortest days of the year, and Tucker’s breath bloomed out in front of him, illuminated in the unhealthy-looking blue light of an overhead streetlamp.

             His thoughts were, of course, about Wash, and about the Whistler family. They had been ever since arriving back from Wiltshire, melancholic and much of his resolve broken.

 _Emily was right all along,_ Tucker thought, looking over the partially-illuminated cityscape. _I achieved nothing by contacting them. I only stirred up old grief._

              In many ways, Tucker had come to realise, it was as if someone had come to him and revealed that there was something suspicious about his wife’s death. The expression ‘ignorance is bliss’ never seemed so pertinent; if someone had revealed her illness had been a result of poisoning then a very large part of Tucker would have preferred not to know. Tucker wasn’t a subscriber to the notion of fate or people ‘dying for a reason,’ but the fact that his wife’s death was natural made her passing more manageable in his mind. There wasn’t some sinister motivation behind her passing – just the universe being a grade-A piece of shit. While David Whistler’s death, his VTOL being shot down, was most certainly not natural, it was still an expected part of war. He was serving his country in a high-risk situation. Tucker coming along and suggesting that there was something more insidious than simply an insurgent with an RPG at work was not in any way welcome or comforting.

              Realising his mistake, and the depth of it, had made Tucker unwilling to see Emily again any time soon, and was glad they had mutually agreed to leave the matter until the New Year at the earliest. He couldn't imagine having to look her in the eye, not right now. He had Christmas and New Year’s to spend down in Cornwall, allowing time for some of the guilt and stress evaporate, able to focus instead on Junior and Wash and good food and bad television specials.

             The sound of footfalls snapped Tucker out of his thoughts and back to reality – still standing upon that hill, the sweat on his face cooling rapidly in the cold air. He turned, and found a familiar figure jogging easily up towards him.

             “Hey man,” Felix said, slowing as he approached, a broad grin on his face. “Wondered if I might see you here today.”

             Tucker had bumped into Felix a few times now since they had first met, and was quite fond of the man. He had a relaxed attitude and never took anything seriously, always joking about something or another, that Tucker appreciated in a time when everyone and everything was so bloody serious. He put out his hand and they bumped knuckles, which was the best way to avoid having to make a sweaty, clammy handshake. “Hey, good to see you again.”

            “Where are you at?”

            Tucker summoned brought up on the HUD of his lenses his running app. “I’m 3km in.”

            Felix snorted. “Only 3km? Amateur.”

            Tucker laughed at this, jostling the other man with his arm. Felix usually ran for far longer than Tucker, and often was able to verify his claims using his own lenses. “We can’t all be insane Olympic runners, Jesus.”

            “I appreciate you think I’m a divine entity but it’s just ‘Felix’ thanks.”

            “Shuttup.”

            There was a bench nearby, beneath the street-light, and Felix sat, beginning to tighten the laces on his running shoes. “You’re spending tomorrow with your parents aren’t you? And New Year’s down on the south coast?”

            “Well remembered,” Tucker nodded.

            “I don’t forget a pretty face,” Felix grinned, making Tucker wonder, not for the first time, if Felix was flirting with him, for the man consistently danced along the fine line that existed between the realm of flirting and the realm of male banter. Felix continued amiably, “Who are you expecting tomorrow? Just you, mum and dad and your kid or are you having to listen to some doddery distant aunt and uncle recall anecdotes forty years out of date?”

            “It’s the former, thankfully,” Tucker said, “Mum and Dad are having me, but thankfully I’m an only child so I don’t have to spend Christmas with lots of irritating relatives – this year anyway.”

            The man smiled. “So next year you will?”

            “Yeah, going to have to spend it with my wife’s family in Germany. All these kids shrieking around the house….”

            “Nightmare. I totally believe in the whole “children should be seen and not heard” school of thought. And New Year’s?” the man said. He seemed to be spending a lot of time doing up his shoelaces again, repeatedly knotting them but apparently each time being unhappy with the results and pulling them loose again. Tucker suspected Felix’s incompetence with shoelaces was just an excuse to have something to do with his hands, but then, there were a lot of things Tucker suspected about Felix, none of which he had any solid evidence for.

            “I’m heading down to Cornwall for a nice relaxing mini-break with the kid and the synth,” Tucker said, “Managed to find a holiday house yesterday online; it was a last-minute opening. Well, I say ‘relaxing’ – I’ll probably have to clean up after the two of them.”

            Felix glanced at Tucker, looking puzzled. “The two of them?”

            “Huh?”

            “Wouldn’t the synth be cleaning up after you, and not vice versa?”

            The realisation of his mistake made his already exercise-hot face flush hotter with embarrassment and unease. “Oh, yeah, of course, I’m speaking nonsense. The synth cleans up after itself anyway of course…” Looking for a change of topic, and realising he had mostly been speaking about himself, he asked the man, “How about your plans? How are you celebrating the arrival of 2034?”

            “Oh, well, I never really do,” Felix laughed, and by way of explanation to Tucker’s confused expression, continued, “My family tends to celebrate more Chinese New Year’s in February than this one.”

            “Oh right, fair enough,” Tucker said, “This is back in….?”

            “The Philippines,” Felix answered, “My family is a big melting pot.”

            “Oh, that’s neat.”

            “Yeah, so I won’t be going anywhere until February probably.”

            They spoke for a short while about Chinese New Year – the holiday was fairly unfamiliar to Tucker and he welcomed the distraction from thinking about recent events in his life. Felix’s anecdotes about family drama was refreshingly light-hearted. However, in a way conversations often have the knack of doing, its focus began to shift back towards those same recent events.

            “So yeah, last year was a complete mess. Moral of the story is – don’t leave it until an hour before your extended family is due to arrive to tell your wife that there are no eggs left in the fridge. My dad is bad like that. He was just hoping she wouldn’t need to any eggs.”

            “At least you can laugh about it now,” Tucker chuckled.  

            “Yeah, yeah we can,” Felix said with a wry smile, before becoming a little more serious. “Just goes to show you can’t keep the other person in the dark.”

            “Especially about the lack of eggs at Chinese New Year.”

            “ _Especially_ about the lack of eggs at Chinese New Year,” Felix agreed.

            “What if it’s for their own good?” Tucker asked. “Not – not about eggs, I mean. In general. Keeping the other person in the dark.”

            “Hmmm?”

“What…. and this is just a random question, you don’t have to answer it….. but what would you do if you had a buddy and you found something out about their past, but you weren’t sure if to tell them or not? Because it’s better if they didn’t know.”

            “Oh? Well, I’d tell them. Probably. I’d expect a friend to tell me if they’d found something out important about me.”

            “Wait, you don’t know what this thing is that I’ve found – or rather – this _hypothetical_ individual has _hypothetically_ discovered.”

            “What’s so bad that you wouldn’t tell them?”

            “Something that could fundamentally destroy their sense of identity,” Tucker said, his voice still and sombre. Felix’s smile faded, and his brow furrowed as he considered this.

            “So…. you’ve found out your buddy is adopted or something?”

            “Yeah…. Yeah, something like that….”

            Felix was quiet for a moment. A pair of joggers ran past, reminding Tucker that he should be getting going himself soon, unless he wanted his muscles to stiffen up and the roads or tube begin to get busy on his journey back to Wimbledon.

            “What is it, exactly? Like, I think if it’s just telling them that they are adopted, it’s not too bad although it’s really their parent’s responsibility-”

            “Their parents are dead,” Tucker interrupted, trying to think of the best way to translate Wash’s unique life story into something relatable to an ordinary person. What situation could a human experience that was possibly as hurtful and soul-destroying as finding out you were a robotic clone of another? “Okay, did you ever read that book ‘ _My Sister’s Keeper_? It came out about twenty years ago, and had a film starring…. Uh…. what’s-her-face…. You know, the woman in _The Mask_ – Cameron Diaz.”

            Felix drank a little from the small water bottle he kept at his waist. “Can’t say I have, sorry.”

            “Well, it’s about some shitty parents who in order to save their firstborn daughter, deliberately have another genetically-compatible child so she can act as a donor for their first kid,” Tucker explained, before taking a deep breath as he began to lie wildly. “So I’ve basically recently found out that my friend was adopted as an early age so he could act as a bone marrow donor for their other child. My friend thinks he is his parents’ biological son.”

            Felix let out a low, long whistle and shot Tucker a sympathetic look. “Shit.”

            “Yeah, I know.”

            “How the fuck did you find this all out?”

            “I…. I overheard the parents.”

            “I thought you said his parents were dead.”

            Tucker, growing flustered, laughed, which really was probably the worst reaction he could have given because it made the story seem all the more ridiculous. “Look, it’s complicated. I’m still leaving out a lot of facts I’m afraid, to protect this buddy of mine’s privacy, but that’s the problem anyway. I can’t decide whether or not to tell him that he’s adopted…. and that his parents adopted him in the first place to act as a secret medical donor.”

            “Right….”

            “So to tell him…. or to not to tell him. That is the question.”

            Felix caught Tucker’s eye and the other man regarded him for a long while, as if he was quietly trying to work out the truth behind Tucker’s strange tale. His eyes, despite being both in shadow and naturally dark in their pigmentation, were strangely intense. “Well, all this being said, I’ve changed my mind. Don’t tell your friend, or at least hold off speaking to him about it until the family speaks to him. It’s a family matter after all – the brother or sister should be revealing all of this to him.”

            “Okay, yeah, that’s what I’ve been thinking too,” Tucker said, although he was no longer quite sure who the analogous ‘brother’ or ‘sister’ was meant to in real life – it had been a messy, imperfect metaphor to begin with. Perhaps Grey, but she hadn’t actually spoken to the Whistlers and discovered all that Tucker now knew about Wash’s original. Tucker was the only one to know even half the story of where Wash had come from.

            Felix stood, flexing his limbs slightly as he did so. “Well, I best be getting on. I hope you somehow manage to break the news to your friend without upsetting him too much.”

            Tucker, now also standing, made a face. “We’ll just have to wait and see. You heading off back home?”

            “Yeah, so I’ll see you around dude,” Felix said, and held out his fist, which Tucker bumped with his own. “Good to talk, we’ve a lot to consider.” He began to jog away, but only after a few paces he twisted back and called, “and Merry Christmas!”

            “Thanks, Merry Christmas to you too!”

            Felix jogged off into the gloom, leaving Tucker smiling after him for a few moments before he turned and began making his way down his own route home. Something niggled at his mind however, and he couldn’t quite place what it was for many minutes.

            It came to Tucker when he reached the edge of the park, where the trees and grass gave way to tarmac and concrete.

            _We’ve a lot to consider._

            It was an odd use of the pronoun in context.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi everyone! Sorry for the enormously long delay - the last chapter I did was published just before exams, and then immediately after exams I was back at home for three months for the summer. My productivity completely goes to shit when I'm at home compared to when I am at uni, so hopefully once I get back in September this fic should be updated a bit more.... well, regularly again. I've also had a classic case of writer's block about some sections of the story, which hopefully should clear up with a bit more time spent writing. 
> 
> It's also worth noting that S14 of RvB has been coming out while this fic was/is on hiatus. I haven't been watching it for the simple reason I like to wait until all the episodes are out, and, when I'm in the right mood for it, binge watch them over a day or two. Consequently my version of Felix seems to be a little out of date compared to the version I've been seeing on my dash! Ah well, I assume he's similar to how he was in S13 and the like so his characterisation shouldn't be too off.


	33. Chapter 33

            “Tucker!” came a squeal, a noise that was followed by a temporary blindness as Kai’s hair whipped around Tucker’s face as his friend embraced him. The familiar scent of the shampoo she used filled him with warmth.

            “A little air?” Tucker wheezed, and Kai laughed, releasing him.

            “So good to see you again! Looking like one handsome motherfucker as ever.”

            “Can we get the reunion over with?” grumbled Grif from behind Kai, clutching a wobbling stack of gifts. “It’s freezing!”

            “Nice to see you too buddy,” Tucker laughed, and hastily made way and ushered the little party that had gathered on the porch into the warmth of the hall. The room was a chorus of excited greetings from everyone gathered: Kai and Grif of course, looking cheerful but tired after their long flight; Simmons; Donut, Doc and Caboose. It was that strange limbo-like time between Christmas and New Year, when with an extended period of time off and nothing to occupy oneself with beyond family and friends, the days seemed to blend together so they were one continuous expanse of wakefulness. Tucker had decided to make use of this period to hold this little get together – mainly to catch up with the Grif siblings following their holiday.

            “How were your mum and dad?” Kai was bubbling, taking off her coat and jacket.

            “They’re as good as ever-“

            Tucker was interrupted by a cry from Junior, racing into the room from the kitchen, and an equivalent reaction from his friends, who hugged him or affectionately rubbed his head, cooing about how much taller he had grown in the short amount of time that had passed since they had last saw him.

            He eventually managed to usher everyone into the sitting room, and leaving Junior to temporary entertain those gathered, hurried into the kitchen to get snacks and drinks. Wash was hovering through the threshold, one hand kneading his opposite shoulder.

            “All okay?”

            Wash grimaced. “I’m suddenly not so keen to show my face in front of Kai. What if she says something?”

            Tucker laughed softly, aware that the guests were close in the other room and that while though they thought he was an eccentric when he came to his synth, they would still find overhearing him having a conversation with it alarming. “Everyone thinks Kai has a few marbles loose anyway – her reacting or saying something strange about you isn’t going to make the others suspect that you are what you are.”

            “But what if-“ 

            “We’ve discussed this. Kai’s one of my best friends. She’ll keep your secret.”

            “Like you did?” Wash asked.

            Tucker, who had been busying himself getting pre-prepared pots of dips out of the fridge and arranging them haphazardly on serving platters, stopped what he was doing and looked at the synth sharply, but he saw a smile playing at the corner of the synth’s lips.

            “Strictly speaking I never promised I would keep you a secret.”

            “Um, I’m pretty sure you _did_.”

            “Is there food, or will I have to come and get it myself?” Grif called from the other room, and Tucker rolled his eyes.

            “Come on, help me with this stuff.”

            “Zero points for presentation,” Wash murmured, and Tucker made to elbow him in the side, but only managed to slosh the sour cream dip out of its little container and over the platter. “And, now we’re in the minuses.”

            “Nobody likes a smart mouth,” Tucker called over his shoulder as he went back through to the living room.

            “Talking to your synth again, Tucker?” Donut said bemused. Tucker mentally kicked himself.

            “Makes for more interesting conversation than talking to you,” Tucker slung back.

            “Ouch!” Donut said, and theatrically pretended to rub tears from his eyes.

            Tucker set down the snack platter on the coffee table in the midst of the sofas upon which his guests now lounged, and a moment later Wash entered the room and set down besides the food the bottles of spiced wine and beer. With everyone else listening to Junior’s antics, only Kai paid the synth any attention, her eyes following his movements, and Tucker could practically see the cogs in her mind whirling, picking up on the minor errors in Wash’s act in pretending to be a standard OS. Wash himself allowed his eyes to flicker to the woman just once, for a split second, before straightening and walking back towards the kitchen in that stiff OS-style.

            “Come on Junior, you need to be back in bed,” Tucker called patiently, and his son gave him a plaintive look.

            “Please can I stay?”

            “You send your son to bed at seven o’clock in the evening?” Grif said, “Jeez, I’m glad you’re not my dad.”

            “And I’m glad you aren’t my child – thank Christ.” Tucker retorted. “Junior here is meant to be recovering in bed, not bouncing around the room, aren’t you champ?”

            Grif stopped munching on whatever he was eating. “Huh? Recovering from what?”

            “I’ve got chicken pox!” Junior said proudly, as if this was some grand personal achievement.

            “I was wondering why you are in your pyjamas so early, little guy,” Kai laughed.

            “And why you were asking us if we all got chicken pox as children!” Doc added.

            Junior stuck out his lower lip a bit more. “I’m feeling much better!”

            “ _Junior_.”

            Junior sighed, and nabbing a bowl of crisps, scampered back upstairs. Leaving the adults in peace.

           “I didn’t see any chickens,” Caboose said, squinting after Junior’s retreating figure.

           Grif chuckled. “I didn’t see any pox!”

           “Most mild case ever, it seems,” Tucker said, popping some crackers and houmous into his mouth. “He was itching on Boxing Day and has been fine since. The doctor still said he should be getting bed rest though in case it’s one of those newer strains that’s popped up over the last few years which is more troublesome to treat.”

           “Didn’t your mother ever tell you not to speak with your mouth full?” Grif said, his own mouth full.

          “Spraying us with crumbs aside, does this mean Junior won’t be going to Cornwall?” Donut said. “I know how much he was looking forward to that.”

          “Well, apparently not. He should be in bed for at least a week, said the doctor, not on an auto journey for five hours.”

          “Surely an auto journey isn’t that bad,” Donut said, “It’s not like he’s hiking outdoors.”

           “Although fresh air is good for the soul,” Caboose added in a sage tone.

          “I don’t think a car journey would do any harm either, but my mum’s determined he doesn’t travel. She’s the type to google symptoms on the internet and be determined that Junior’s caught some horrific equatorial disease.”

           “Lol,” Kai snorted, “ours is exactly the opposite. She’s the kind to give you an aspirin and some chicken soup and tell you to get over it.”

           “I was wondering what childhood trauma made you the way you are.”

           Grif chuckled, and Kai resorted to pinging a grape in Tucker’s direction.

 

 

            Once Donut and Doc had thanked Tucker and, comfortably drunk, stumbled off towards a waiting auto, Kai was the final guest remaining. Caboose had left early to attend to Freckles, who had apparently been cooped up all day in his flat, and Wash had yet to reappear after he had vanished upstairs, presumably to keep Junior company. The two friends could effectively could have a private conversation.

            “It’s bizarre.”

            Tucker turned to her from where he was vacuum-sealing a bottle of spiced wine that had remained only partially drunk. “What?”

            “Wash being in the house. It’s just…. crazy. A sentient robot. It’s one thing you telling me in that park all those weeks ago, and another seeing him for my own eyes.”

            Tucker chuckled. “It’s been going on for so long now I’ve stopped really thinking about it. Even the strangest things become everyday, mundane shit given enough time.”

            “I was sitting there wondering how the others didn’t notice it. He was moving like a human.”

            “He’s good enough at pretending to be an OS that unless you know the truth, you wouldn’t guess. Nobody pays any attention to other people’s synths.”

            “I’d like to speak to him, properly. Would he mind?”

            Tucker scratched his chin. “I can’t imagine he would mind.”

            “He wouldn’t be asleep, would he? It’s quite late.”

            Tucker laughed at this. “Wash doesn’t sleep. He sort of cat-naps around the house near wall-sockets when he’s charging, but otherwise this place is like a bloody haunted house – he drifts about at night doing odd-jobs. You go downstairs for a glass of water and there’s a pair of glowing silver eyes staring at you from the corner of the room.”

            Kai snorted. “He sounds like literally the perfect guy for you. He’s massively productive, you laze around doing nothing.”

            “Uh, I resent that!” Tucker replied in faux indignation, tossing the empty beer bottles into the recycling box in the utility room immediately adjacent to the kitchen. “And, ‘perfect guy’?”

            “How long are we going to dance around this, Tucker?” Kai teased.

            “There’s nothing we _are_ dancing around.”

            Kai indicated around the kitchen, to what Tucker was doing. “Come on, dude. You’re so domestic. Liven things up a little! Kiss the boy. Or rather, robot.”

            “Having a sentient robot enter my life and then live with me isn’t considered having my life ‘livened up’? And I’m _not_ kissing-“

            “I mean in the sense that you aren’t getting out there, seeing people, dating. Like I said, domestic.”

            Tucker had a myriad of responses fly through his head, but all seemed to flounder before he even opened his mouth. “I _do_ have a child I have to care for, Kai. Domesticity sort of comes part and parcel of being a dad.”

            “Alright, perhaps that’s not the right word,” Kai said amiably. She had picked up an orange from the fruitbowl and was absently juggling it between her hands. “I mean…. you’re being complacent. Wait, that’s not right either. I’m basically trying to say, you can’t just wait for things to happen sometimes.”

            Tucker raised an eyebrow. “What am I ‘waiting to happen’? I’m not looking for anything right now.”

            “Tucker, the very day you got Wash you told me you were getting back into the dating scene. You want another relationship, don’t you? I mean, it’s perfectly fine if you don’t – our society overhypes relationships anyway – but I mean, I just firmly believe you do want to have someone in your life again, even if you might not acknowledge you do.”

            Tucker was quiet. He had sort of ran out of things to busy himself with around the kitchen – everything had been washed or put away or recycled – so he leaned against the sink, considering how to answer Kai’s probing questions. “Even if I wanted another relationship, I don’t want it to happen with Wash.”

            “Why not?”

            “Because I don’t roll that way?”

            “What, with men?”

            “No, with jellyfish. Yes, with men. I’m not interested.”

            Kai grinned, giving her friend a supremely sceptical look. “Alright…. then, if, hypothetically, you _were_ interested-“

            “Which I’m not,” Tucker grumbled.

            “But if you _were_ , what would be stopping you? Is it that he is a robot?”

            “No, it’s that…..”

            Tucker thought about his reluctance to consider something…. romantic… happening, between himself and the synth. Kai was right to doubt his word: it wasn’t that he was ‘straight.’ He was now fairly certain he had been obliviously bisexual most of his life and there had never been any reason to choose men over women, but the idea of being with a man didn’t repel him in any way…. especially if it was with Wash…. It was more….

            Tucker rubbed the pad of his thumb against his knuckles, not looking up at Kai. “There’s a lot of shit in Wash’s past we don’t know about, and I don’t know if either myself or Junior is quite over….. well, you know. And not to mention I don’t know if he likes me back, and if he doesn’t, I don’t want to ruin anything by making it weird.”

            Kai’s eyes were sympathetic, but her mouth was still twitching, resisting a smile. “I understand dude.”

            “That is _not_ me tacitly saying I’m waiting for the right moment.”

            “Sure, sure.”

            “Kai.”

            “Alright, alright, whatever you say buddy! Although you are going on holiday together. I mean, that’s pretty gay.”

            “Stop. It’s a holiday of convenience.”

            “Holiday of convenience my butthole.”

            Tucker rubbed the bridge of his nose. “I don’t want to think of your butthole.”

            “Are you sure? I mean, I’ve been told I have a beautiful-“

            “Kai, do you want to meet Wash, because I’m quite prepared to force you out my house.”

            “Alright, I’ll shut up, now show me this luscious synth friend of yours."

 

 

 

            A text from Tucker brought Wash to the kitchen a few moments later.

            “Wash…. meet Kai. Kai, meet Wash.”

            There was a slightly awkward silence. Kai gave a little wave at the synth, who was looking at her with a curiously blank expression…

            “Hello. I do not recognise your identity-“

            Tucker’s heart beat faltered. “Holy shit – _what the fu_ -“

            “I’m joking!” Wash exclaimed, the human emotion flowing back into his face like a rainstorm in the desert. “I’m joking!” He stepped into the kitchen, grinning at Tucker’s reaction.

            “Do _not_ do that to me again, for fuck’s sake!”

            Kai stuck out her hand, and Wash shook it. “If you like winding Tucker up as much as I do, then I think we’ll get along like a house on fire.”

            “It’s my main pastime.”

            “I’ve only just introduced the two of you and I feel like it was a mistake,” Tucker groaned.

           


	34. Chapter 34

            “Yeah Mum….. Yeah, I know.”

            Tucker caught Wash’s eye and gave an exasperated shrug of his shoulders, to which the synth began to laugh quietly.

            “I didn’t want to make a scene in front of Junior, but I want you to know that I think it’s awfully eccentric to go on holiday with only a synth!” Mrs Tucker said, her tone that one all parents employ when disapproving of their adult child’s actions whilst acknowledging there was nothing they could do to stop them. “It really would be much better to have stayed with Junior and us for the few days whilst he gets better.”

            “Mum, I’ve explained this,” Tucker said impatiently, “We can’t get back the money on the cottage, and besides, we’re already on our way.” This was true – Tucker and Wash were currently sitting opposite one another in the comfortable seats of an auto cruising down the M4 towards Bristol, having dropped Junior off at Tucker’s parents place an hour earlier. “Junior’s said so himself that he’s quite fine with me having a four day break.”

            “You don’t ‘take a four day break’ being a parent,” his mother replied sniffily. “Especially when your son is ill.”

            “Mum, I saw you give him a whole bowl of chocolate ice-cream 24 hours ago – no kid who can eat a whole bowl of chocolate ice-cream and then ask for more is seriously ill. It’s just chicken pox. He’ll be as right as rain within a week.”

             “Still, what are you going to do down there by yourself? The weather forecast is looking dreadful – I don’t think you’re going to be spending your time sunbathing!”

             Tucker’s impatience began to morph into annoyance. “Mum, I’ve got work to do, I’ve got a list of non-PG films I want to watch and a Kindle full of books I’ve been meaning to read for, like, forever.”

             “You can read?” Wash whispered from across the auto. Tucker flipped him the finger.

             “You’re not doing anything inappropriate with that new robot of yours, are you?” his mother abruptly pressed, and Tucker felt his cheeks grow hot. His eyes flickered to Wash, but if the synth was listening in on the phone call, he made no visible reaction to this enquiry.

            “No!” Tucker protested, “No, of course I’m not. Anyway, even if I was-“

            “I really hope you are not!”

            “I’m really not, Mum! Even if I was, it isn’t any of your business I am afraid.”

            “It is my business! I want you to be in a proper relationship, not shacking up instead with some…. glorified sex-toy.”

            “Mum!”

            His mother relented somewhat. “Sorry, sorry, I know, I know. Look, I don’t mean to sound so puritanical. I understand if you still aren’t ready to move on after –“

            “Can we not talk about this right now?” Tucker said more sharply than he meant to.

            There was a pause. Wash, his head partially turned towards the floor, was looking at him from under his eyebrows. Beyond the synth, out of the auto’s windows, traffic coming down the other carriageway flashed across the backdrop of the bare trees that lined the motorway’s boundaries beyond the hardshoulder.

            At length, he heard his mother sigh. “I’m sorry. Look, enjoy your holiday, have a break. We’ll look after Junior and we can talk about these matters in the New Year.”

            _Oh boy, I’m looking forward to that._

            “Sure Mum. And I thanks again for looking after the little guy, I really do appreciate it.”

            “That’s no problem honey.”

            Mother and son exchanged goodbyes and hung up, upon which Tucker let out a monumental sigh. “That was not meant to be such a struggle.”

            Wash smiled. “I imagine most people’s parents would be displeased with their child going on a holiday with only a glorified sex-toy for company.”

            “Awww shit, you heard that? I’m sorry-“

            Wash held up a hand. “I’m not offended, don’t worry.”

            “Do you think it was wrong of me to leave Junior? I mean, it isn’t too late to go back and fetch him….”

            “I get the feeling he’d rather be able to play with all his new toys and video games while his grandma and grandpa dote over him than be stuck down in a boring old holiday home in Cornwall for four days with two people who just want to do nothing,” Wash said reasonably.

            “I know, I know, but, still, I’m his Dad, I shouldn’t be leaving him-“

            “Tucker, what’s the longest time you’ve been apart from him since….. since his mother died?”

            Tucker paused. “I guess…. Well, never longer than a day really.”

            “See? Taking four days off to relax without your kid is fine. He’s safe, he’s with family, he doesn’t even want to come with us…. What’s the problem?”

            “Why do I feel like your drawing me into temptation?”

            “Well, I’m sure many theologians around the world would consider me an abomination against god, so it wouldn’t entirely be surprising if I was an agent of Satan working to-“

            Tucker chuckled, “Alright, alright, stop being so melodramatic.”

            “I’m not being melodramatic!”

            “Dude, you’re melodramatic like…. 90% of the time.”

            “That is grossly unfair.”

            “I genuinely thought you were going to have a nervous breakdown when one of your cats came in on Boxing Day and was immediately sick all over the living room carpet.”

            “It was distressing!” Wash exclaimed. “And ‘ _some cat_ ’ – his name is Lawrence!”

            “And remind me what the vet said was wrong with Lawrence?” Tucker laughed, settling back into his seat and pulling up a game on his HUD to idly swipe at while he chatted with the synth, who was presently looking grumpy.

            “I may have overfed him.”     

            “You spoil those animals something rotten. Why do you even like them so much?”

            “Look, I really love cats okay, don’t question that,” Wash said, holding up both his hands.

            “And do you want to hug all of them, but you can’t, because that’s crazy?”

            “Tucker, what the fuck are you on.”

            Tucker groaned. “You need to brush up on your classic internet memes. I mean, even if that video did turn out to be a fake.”

           

 

 

            They stopped at a service stations just after they had entered Devon to give Tucker a chance to use the loos and to buy some snacks. They had enough cool-boxes in the boot of the auto to feed an army, but it was largely frozen, and being on holiday Tucker wasn’t particularly concerned with what he was eating and felt like junk food. They had burgers at cheap fast-food place. Wash was talkative; Tucker figured that perhaps something about the location and the meal reminded him of that year he had spent as a nomad – always on the run - because he spoke a lot about the others. He recalled when Carolina or Tex weren’t there, York and Connie and North would fuck with the surrounding electronics: setting off car alarms, making the self-checkout machines say strange things, making the lights flicker to the beat of the music playing over the radio. Tucker was happy just to listen: even after having known him for a little while now, hearing details about Wash’s past was still rare.

            “Do you need anything else?” Wash asked as Tucker wiped the last of the ketchup from his fingers with a napkin. He pointed to a small Marks and Spencer’s supermarket. “Snacks?”

            “Crisps and biscuits? Hit me up.”

            They separated, Wash finding food and Tucker ending up looking to see if the store stocked any of a particular kind of soft drink he liked.

            He was so preoccupied he didn’t immediately register someone was calling his name.

            “ _Tucker_.”

            Tucker turned around, not immediately seeing who had spoken. “What?”

            A figure at the end of the aisle took a few steps closer.

            _Church._

            Church’s demeanour was different from the last time Tucker had seen him, on that dark lane on the outskirts of London. He still had a certain seriousness in his expression, probably thanks to his low brow and dark shadows under his eyes, but the frown Tucker associated with him was gone, instead replaced by the whisper of a smirk. He was idly cracking his knuckles rather than have his hands hovering around his belt. He was not dressed in the uniform of a police or paramilitary officer, but rather in expensive-looking chinos, brown leather shoes, a white shirt and rimless glasses. He looked like a rather dapper professor or lawyer. It was disarming.

            “Good morning Mr Tucker. Or rather, afternoon? It’s just turned noon. It’s in that sort of awkward time between the two. Good midday?”

            “Church,” Tucker said, not bothering to mask the mixture of alarm and annoyance he was feeling in his voice. “What are you doing here?”

            “No ‘Hi, good to see you Church, how’ve you been?’” Church said. He leant over and from one of the few shelves that stocked healthier products, chose a red apple. He inspected it for a moment, eyeing it for flaws, but instead of eating it ended up simply tossing it from hand to hand. “Wash about?”

            “I think you already know the answer to that. He’ll be back in a moment. Can’t say I appreciate being stalked when I’m on holiday, dude.”

            “’Stalking’ is rather a strong word,” Church mused. He bit into the apple neatly. The crunch seemed unusually loud, and Tucker realised how on edge he was. He relaxed his grip on the basket he was holding.

            “So you just happen to be taking a holiday too? In the same part of the UK?”

            “Perhaps,” Church replied.

            “Don’t fuck around. What do you want?”

            “It’s been a while since Doyle and I asked you to speak with Wash and his little group of synths about speaking with the government. We haven’t heard back from you.”

            “The others have been told. It’s their decision, not mine.”

            “Tucker, I don’t think you understand.”

            “What don’t I understand?”

            “Look around you Tucker. What do you see?”

            Tucker did look around. The aisle of the shop they were standing in was completely unremarkable – that same copy-and-pasted supermarket design you saw in every service station and town and city across the country. The floors were a white plastic laminate, the lights overhead cold blue, the air cool from all the refrigerated shelving. Other shoppers mostly consisted of people of all ages: children, young people, parents, old people, presumably either returning home from having spent Christmas with family or else, like Tucker himself, taking a break now that Christmas was over.

            “What am I meant to be looking for?”

            “Just tell me what you see?”

            “Food? People? What’s your point, Church?”

            “Synths, Tucker! _Synths!_ They’re so ubiquitous in your life that your brain barely registers them anymore. They’re background noise, a persistent bad smell, an annoying hum: you just tune them out of your existence.”

            Tucker felt his heart begin to beat faster. He looked around. There was a synth less than three metres from him, methodically restocking sandwiches onto the shelves with stiff, jerky movements. Next to the freezers a synth was moping the floor. Two other humans around him had synths trailing after them, carrying shopping baskets or helping to look after children. Out in the main concourse of the service station, Tucker could see a synth handing out fliers.

            “When’s the last time you remember consciously acknowledging a synth that wasn’t Wash?” pressed Church.

            Tucker couldn’t remember. He swallowed hard. “What’s your point?”

            “Synthetics are all around you Tucker. Everywhere. They’re in shops, in homes, in schools, in hospitals, in factories, in government offices. There are one billion synthetics in Europe and five hundred million people. They outnumber people even more in the US, Japan and Korea. Now, someone’s been fucking with synth code on a whole new level – generating supposed consciousness. We _need_ to establish who coded this, what their intentions are and just how much of a threat this errant code is. If Wash and the rest of his friends won’t cooperate, then Brussels is going to have to take matters into their own hands.”

            “Is that a threat?”

            “Yes, yes it is,” Church said. There was no hostility in his expression, but his voice had crystallised into something as hard and as cold as steel. His words made Tucker both shrink away in fear and bristle with anger.

            “Tucker?”

            Tucker turned to see Wash approaching, holding in his arms a bag of crisps and some biscuits.

            “Is everything-“ 

            He suddenly stilled and then collapsed, like he was a puppet whose strings had suddenly been cut. There was a pop as he landed one of the bags, sending crisps scattering out across the floor.

            Tucker was kneeling next to Wash within a second, cradling the synth’s head. “ _Wash!_ ”

            “He’ll be fine,” Church said, advancing on Tucker. Other people were looking on now, alarmed. Tucker could see the synths that had been restocking and cleaning the shop had paused, watching, trying to evaluate the situation themselves.

            “What have you done to him?”

            “I’ve just exploited a bit of an error in their code is all. He’ll be fine dude.”

            Tucker hadn’t considered Wash to have programming vulnerabilities. He had passively come to assume that Wash’s mind was invulnerable: self-aware and intelligent enough that it could outsmart any human programmer within his native environment of binary.

            _Unless…_

            The thought struck Tucker like a truck. He snapped his head to look at Church.

            “You’re one of them.”

            Church took another bite from the apple, and nodded nonchalantly. “Correct.”

            “But the others….? How could they not tell?”

            “I’ve become good at disguising myself.”

            “Sir?” one of the stores’ synthetics asked. “It appears there is a problem with your synthetic. Would you like me to contact our resident synthetic-“

            Tucker ignored him. “Restore Wash. Now. Then we need to talk.”

            “Do you understand? The synths have their chance to negotiate with the government. They need to take it.”

            “Fine, I’ll tell them! Now just restore Wash!”

            Church snapped his fingers, the noise seeming loud in the hush. Tucker was very much aware of the other humans close by, watching the exchange with feigned polite ignorance but otherwise morbidly curious in what was going on. From Wash abruptly came the sound of his system rebooting.

            Church turned on his heels, tossed away his half-eaten apple onto the floor and began to walk towards the exit. The sensors at the supermarket’s entrance flashed green briefly to show he had paid for the apple.

            “Wait!” Tucker said. Hoping Wash was now safely coming back to himself, he abandoned him on the floor, scrambling to his feet and chasing after Church. The man – _the synth_ – was already out of the main service station building, walking out through the electric charging bays towards the open tarmac. “This isn’t right. The government can’t just go around-“

            “Who says I’m a member of the government?” Church said, looking over his shoulder.

            “What….? But you’re Doyle’s toadie.”

            Church laughed, turning around and throwing his hands up. “Maybe a little. I’ve been helping them, but, Tucker, I don’t work for them. I work _with_ them.” His voice had dropped, become cooler. “I have my own agenda here Tucker, that just happens to align, for now, with that of Brussels. Wash and the rest of the synths need to cooperate," he reiterated.

            An auto appeared suddenly, moving much too quickly for any normal driving AI to be controlling it in a busy car-park. It screeched to a halt next to Church, its door opening for the synth to step inside. Tucker’s mouth fell open when he processed its make and model.

            “Do you think I could afford a Lamborghini on a civil servants salary?” Church smiled.

            Tucker managed to stop staring at the beautiful auto long enough to snipe back, “Could you afford a Lamborghini anyway?”

            “Of course not.”

            Church stepped inside the car, the door slamming shut after him. Inside, he waved once before it jumped away, its tires once again screeching slightly as it bee-lined for the onramp to the motorway.

            Tucker stood motionless in the gentle drizzle. He could hear Wash calling from behind him, running up towards him.

            “What the hell….? What the hell just happened?”

            “I don’t know,” Tucker admitted. “I don’t know.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 500 kudos - wow! Just wow. I could have never anticipated when I first started this fic the positive response it would receive. Thanks to everyone as ever who has been giving feedback - I appreciate it beyond words. 
> 
> I know this fic hasn't been updating a lot recently, and I can only apologise profusely, but it isn't dead. I began writing it at a moment when I was very much into both RvB and Humans, and together those series ended up being a huge source of inspiration for this fic, with Humans providing the setting and RvB the characters. The problem I'm finding at the moment is that while the second series of Humans (and to a lesser extent, the wonderful Westworld) is keeping me inspired about the setting and plot (I love me some robots), I haven't really been that enthused about RvB recently. This is NOT me implying RT have been putting out sub-par content at all - S14 was great - but it just didn't give me those Wash-Tucker scenes that might have rejuvenated my love for the characters and the ship.
> 
> It's also been a year since I've started the fic, and the passing of time also tends to make one more reflective. I can't help but look back at earlier chapters and see things I could have done better, and that slows my productivity in making new chapters. There are so many good fics being written at the moment, I feel I need to uphold a certain level of quality for Ones and Zeroes too which delays me writing new content.
> 
> I might try and rewatch some older seasons of RvB, or just hold out until the next season to try and get inspired to write more prolifically again, but in the meantime please forgive me and be patient with me! :P


	35. Chapter 35

            Tucker and Wash were standing on a mirror.

            They had reached the holiday house late the evening before, and it was now noon the following day and the man and the synth were standing out on the broad, empty expanse of sand that lay a hundred or so metres down the cliff from their front door. A high winter tide had swept in and out over the course of the morning, leaving the beach as smooth and as clear as a pane of glass. Their reflections shimmered beneath them as they slowly strolled towards the waves, their coats and hoods drawn close against the cold and drizzle.

            A lone rock, or perhaps a very weathered piece of concrete, covered in barnacles and seaweed and surrounded by its own little moat-like tide pool, lay in their path, and as they came to stand next to it, Wash turned to Tucker. “You’re checking your lenses again, aren’t you?”

            Tucker blinked, and with a motion of his hand, closed the webpages he had superimposed over his vision. “Sorry.” He had been searching for information about Church again, as he had been more or less obsessively over the past twenty-four hours since the synth had revealed his true nature to Tucker. If there existed any information about Church, it was just as elusive as the identity of Wash’s original had been, if not more so. There were no ‘Leonard Churches’ on any birth announcement archives. The man smiled, and made another attempt to shift the uneasy mood that had descended upon the two of them. “I should appreciate the beautiful weather and my engaging travel companion more.”

            He was rewarded with a laconic grin from Wash as the synth glanced up at the iron-grey sky. “Good old British weather.”

            The moment of levity was short-lived however, the synth’s eyes coming to stare out across the horizon.

            This time, it was Tucker who broke the quiet.

            “Are you afraid?”

            “Afraid?”

            “Of what happened with Church yesterday. How he disabled you.”

            “I thought we agreed we weren’t going to talk about that particular aspect of the encounter with him.”

            “I didn’t agree to that,” Tucker pressed, “We can’t just ignore it.”

            “I’m not ignoring it, Tucker,” Wash said, his voice short. “The error in my code has been dealt with. Problem solved.”

            Tucker was silent for a long moment. Not for any particular reason, he stepped up onto the rock, being careful to avoid treading on the slippery seaweed. Wash circled idly, watching a few minute fish that had become stranded in the tide pool dart about, waiting for the waters of the sea to return.

            “You can show weakness in front of me, you know. I don’t think less of you because someone can play some Jedi mind-tricks on you.”

            “Tucker-“ Wash’s head snapped up to glare at him, but Tucker interrupted him before he could shut down the conversation again.

            “We’re friends aren’t we? Friends trust each other.”

            Wash scuffed the sand a bit with the heel of his boot, not saying anything.

            “You know my weaknesses,” Tucker pointed out. “You know I have a debilitating fear of snakes after that one incident at the petting zoo when I was seven. You know I don’t like tight spaces after my friend locked me in a closet at a friend’s birthday party aged thirteen for so long that I pissed myself.”

            Wash was looking down, so Tucker couldn’t see his expression directly, but he knew he had made the synth smile despite himself. “Those are different from being instantaneously disabled when someone close to you might have needed you.”

            Tucker hopped down from the rock and slapped the synth across the shoulders. “Dude, I was fine. I had everything completely under control. Church wouldn’t have been able to get through me.”

            “Sure dude, whatever makes you feel better,” Wash said, layering the doubt in his voice on thick.

            “But seriously. Nobody is all-powerful, and like you say, you’ve fixed the bug in your code. No more being instantaneously disabled.”

            “At least not by _that_ error. What if there are others-“

            “What if a piano falls out of the sky right now, killing me instantly? Bug check yourself by all means, but at the end of the day, you can’t cover all your bases. Nobody is all powerful,” Tucker repeated for emphasis. “Now stop being grumpy.”

            “I’m not being grumpy,” Wash said grumpily, with a grumpy expression.

            “Mate…”

            “Okay, okay. It’s just hard to be cheerful now we know there’s another player in the game. Who is Church? What’s Church’s motivation? Who is he working for? Why does there have to be another person to worry about?”

            They had discussed all these questions of course on the remainder of their journey yesterday, but were no closer to finding any answers. Wash had tipped off the rest of his friends, making them aware that there was another conscious synthetic, but they were just as helpless as he was to explain how this could be the case.

            Tucker pushed thoughts of the Whistlers, and the implication that there was yet another family out there whose son had been remade into an AI, out of his head and suggested brightly, “Perhaps there’s like a really non-conventional reason why someone’s building these synthetics you know? Like, maybe your creator is this massive shut-in computer nerd and they keep creating synths to be their boyfriend or girlfriend, but you synths keep escaping?”

            “So I’m someone’s Pygmalion?”

            “Huh? ‘The Rain in Spain Falls Mainly on the Plain?’”

            Wash laughed. “No! I thought Junior liked Greek Mythology; I would have expected you to know about the Greek myth of Pygmalion.”

            “I am omniscient no more than I’m omnipotent,” Tucker groused. “I can’t just upload books directly to my memory like you can.”

            “I actually read this the old-fashioned way,” Wash said, nudging his friend to take any sting out of his words. “Pygmalion was a sculptor who carved such a beautiful statue of a woman that he fell in love with it.”

            “Jesus, he really was a shut-in.”

            Wash chose to ignore this. “Ovid wrote that he prayed and made offerings to Aphrodite, the goddess of love, asking that he found a wife who looked like his statue, but when he returned home found that she had come alive.”

            Tucker turned his head ever so marginally to look at Wash, and found Wash had done the same, looking at him. Their eyes met, and Tucker felt a frisson of energy run sweep down the curve of his spine. The exchange lasted hardly any time at all, but Tucker suddenly felt himself breathless, the energy seeming to spread to imbue every muscle in his body. Standing next to Wash on the beach, with the smell of salt spray and the low breeze ruffling his hair and the comparatively gentle crash of waves in his ears, he was suddenly overcome with an urge to do something careless.

            His hands flew to coat, and, unzipping it, he wriggled his way out of it, dumping it onto the sand behind him.

            “Tucker?” Wash asked, giving him a quizzical look. “What are you doing?”

            “I’m going to go for a swim!” Tucker said, grinning at the synth, barely able to contain his sudden enthusiasm for the idea.

            Wash looked at him as if he had lost the plot. “I’m sorry?” 

            “A swim! Come on, join me!”

            “Tucker,” Wash said patiently, as if he was talking to a small child. “We are in Britain. In winter. The water will be freezing.”

            “So what?” Tucker said, his voice blithe, enjoying winding his friend up as he pulled off one of his boots and, hopping around on one leg, attempted to pull of his socks without getting sand all over them. “Gulf Steam, motherfucker.”

            “It’ll still be freezing!” Wash exclaimed. Tucker could see the corners of Wash’s mouth twitching. _He’s considering it!_

            “Isn’t your optimal operating temperature like -10°C?”

“I wasn’t talking about myself,” Wash said. “Besides, it could be dangerous! We don’t know what the currents are like.  You shouldn’t go swimming without a lifeguard.”

            Tucker shot him a challenging look, before flicking one arm dismissively in the direction of the sea. “I really don’t think I’m going to be in any danger, particularly swimming with you.” Despite the miserable weather, the sea was placid, and Tucker had been to the beach enough to be aware that it wasn’t known for hidden currents or rip-tides.

            As Tucker got to work on his other shoe, he watched with satisfaction as Wash’s eyes seemed to become unfocused for a moment, before his friend visibly sighed. “The coast guard service say on their website that the swimming conditions here are fine,” Wash said flatly.

            “Hah! See? Come on Wash,” Tucker said, punching the synth on one shoulder. He pulled off his sweatshirt in one smooth motion and began to unbutton his shirt, the wind catching at the fabric and making it flutter. Tucker could feel the goosebumps rising across his body, but adrenaline rushing through his bloodstream was allowing him to ignore the worst of the cold air. “You know you want to.”

            Wash closed his eyes, smiling slightly. “We don’t have towels,” he said, making one last appeal to Tucker’s rational side. This point was rather offset by the fact he was already making to unzip his own coat.

            “YOLO,” was all Tucker had to say to that. Undoing his belt, he shucked off his chinos and stepped out of them. In only his boxers, he began to jog backwards in the direction of the sea, looking back at Wash, who began to rapidly strip off his own clothes. “Come on, slow-poke!”

            “You had a head start!” Wash called. To his credit, he was undressing himself much more smoothly than Tucker had done, with none of the awkward hopping.

            “You snooze, you lose, Wash.”

            Seeing Wash was already very nearly in the same state of undress he was, Tucker turned to face the sea and broke into an outright run, the wind whistling past his ears all but drowning out the whoop of mirth he made and the thuds of his feet against the saturated sand. It was just as his feet splashed into the shallowest part of the surf did he hear approaching from behind, and a moment later the synth thundered past like a fighter jet that had assumed human form. With one smooth motion that would have put both an Olympic long jumper and diver to shame, the synth vaulted forward several metres and neatly slid into the waves beyond the surf, barely producing a splash. Tucker had to make do with the conventional method of entering the ocean: slowly wading in.

            Wash hadn’t been exaggerating – the water really was freezing regardless of whether or not it had supposedly come all the way up from the Gulf of Mexico. Gritting his teeth and very much aware of his testicles hurriedly shrinking back into his body at the first icy slap of a wave against his groin, Tucker forced himself into deeper water as fast as he was able. Ahead of him, Wash’s grinning face reappeared with a spray of water, pushing his slicked-down hair off of his forehead. “I very nearly just lost my underwear doing that stunt,” Wash shouted sheepishly.

            Tucker barked out a laugh despite his diaphragm having to have seemingly frozen up at the temperature of the water. Taking a deep breath, he plunged himself into the next wave head-first and emerged a few seconds later spluttering, chest tight and eyes stinging, but over the worst of the shock. With a strong breast stroke, he began to swim out to where Wash was treading water.

            “You don’t look so eager to swim now,” Wash grinned. “You look a cat that’s being forced to have a bath.”

            “Shut your whore mouth,” Tucker said. “I’m loving this.”

            “Clearly.”

            Laughing, Tucker tried to swim close enough to grab his friend, but Wash simply ducked under water.

            “Dammit!”

            A splash behind made Tucker spin on the spot. Wash made a face at him. “Who’s the slow one now?”

            Tucker lunged for him, as much as one could lunge whilst swimming, but Wash was apparently at home on the water as he was on land, despite his human physiology. The synth stayed under for longer this time, which caused Tucker a moment of illogical panic before he remembered that Wash had reserve battery cells that could operate in the absence of atmospheric oxygen, and could stay under for hours if he was so inclined. Unable to anything but tread water and grin at the synth’s antics, Tucker waited for Wash to reappear, only to feel something wrap around his ankle and give him a sharp tug. He partly went under, seawater flooding over his face and very nearly shooting up his nose, but he spluttered back to the surface again within a few seconds, Wash appearing next to him as he did so.

            Tucker’s mind was divided into two separate areas of thought at that moment. The first area was mostly concerned with boring things like _survival_ , making him kick at the water a little harder and suck in deeper breaths, trying to calm himself with huge, reassuring gulps of air. Tucker had read once that the hearts of terrestrial mammals instinctively go into overdrive after the animal’s face is submerged in water, in some primordial effort to avoid drowning, but that was not the only reason his heart was beating faster. This was the concern of the second area, as it was very much away of just how close Wash’s face now was from Tucker’s. Beneath the surface, across his torso and legs Tucker could feel the eddies and currents created by Wash’s limbs, and they felt like caresses.

            “You bastard,” Tucker managed, wiping as much water off of his face as he could. “Bastard. I felt like that girl from Jaws, right at the beginning of the movie.”

            “Sorry, it was too hard to resist,” Wash chuckled. Tucker could feel the exhalation of the synth’s breath on his lips. Even over the smell of the sea, there was a metallic tang to that breathe that no human would possess in their own.

            As a sort of petty revenge, Tucker grabbed at him again, and this time managed to catch Wash before he scooted away, grappling with the synth, trying to dunk him under. Wash was laughing nearly as breathlessly and readily as Tucker was, for now at least all other concerns preying on his mind forgotten, simply enjoying the horse-play. Feeling Wash’s silky-smooth polymer body pressed up against his own, Tucker was firstly reminded of just how strong the synth was, knowing the graphene muscles bunched and flexing against him were operating at just a fraction of their full power, and secondly of how glad he was of the freezing water, for it meant there was no opportunity for him to get hard, despite the intimacy.

            That latter thought made Tucker shy, and he backed away, still laughing but keen not to ruin the moment.

            “Right then, Wash made a face and seemed to spring slightly from the water. “Oh! Shit, oh, okay!”

            “What?” Tucker said, voice colouring with concern, before seeing Wash’s embarrassment.

            “Something just brushed my leg, but it was.... uh.... just seaweed.”

            “And I thought you were a battle-hardened soldier.”

            Wash flushed. “I was distracted. It startled me. Besides, if that had been dangerous, I still would have gone full Rambo on that thing.”

            Right then, a particularly large wave suddenly swelled and crested over them, inundating Tucker once again with icy water. He was suddenly aware of the growing numbness in his limbs, and felt obliged to call out to Wash once he had resurfaced, “Okay, Jesus, I think I’ve had enough swimming for one day.”

            Wash nodded, and the two of them swam the short distance to where the water was shallow enough to stand without getting barrelled over by any incoming swells. The air was even colder than the sea, and Tucker immediately began to feel himself shiver and his teeth chatter. “Fuck me, it’s cold. Ah!” Tucker interrupted before Wash could say anything, a smug grin spreading across his lips, “Nobody likes an ‘I-told-you-so.’”

            “Whatever you say, Tucker.”

            Despite the cold, for no particular reason they stopped right at the edge of the surf, where the waves were no more than occasional surges that reshaped the sand around toes and heels. Tucker found his heart was still beating as hard as it was before, expectancy making his arteries and veins thrum.

 _I want to kiss him,_ Tucker thought.

            And so he did.

            Tucker closed the distance between them with a single stride and, wrapping a hand around the back of Wash’s head, leaned up and pressed his lips against the synth’s. Wash went completely rigid. It was like Tucker was kissing the OS that had worn Wash’s face for so many weeks, awkward and unresponsive, like kissing an old-fashioned mannequin from a department store. It was only when Tucker made to pull away, thinking he had made some terrible error of judgement and already preparing an apology, did Wash seem to abruptly reboot and kiss him back. 

            His lips were as cold as the sea, and tasted as salty, but Tucker didn’t care. Suddenly there was a palm curving around the back his own head, a bumping nose, a warm, pliant mouth responding to his own lips.

            It didn’t last very long, but that didn’t lessen its magnitude. They kept close, each pair of eyes searching the other's, the ring of light surrounding Wash’s pupils seeming to occupy the entirety of Tucker’s world.

            “Is this okay?” Tucker asked.

            It was a loaded question. The ‘this’ carrying a lot of emotion and meaning within it.

            “Yeah,” Wash said softly. “Yeah, it is.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Bits of this chapter have been sitting on my harddrive for a long time :P I hope you've enjoyed it! It's a relief to finally publish the kiss. The slow-burn is over, and their relationship has become something new.


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